The Urgency of Revising Local Election Act
The government together with the House od Representative (DPR) have agreed to revise Act No. 8/2015 on Local Election. The discussion of the draft will take place in April 2016. The goal of the revision is to ensure a Local Election that is better than before. The revision will be directly applied for the next Local Election in 2017 in which the pre session will be started in May 2016. All Indonesians hope that the government will be able to resolve many problems occurring in Local Election 2015 in this revision.
There are some technical and non-technical problem in Local Election 2015. Some technical problems are un-neutrality case and lack of preparation of the Election Supervisory Agency (Banwaslu) and the General Elections Comission (KPU); Low accuracy of List of Potential Voters (DP3), Temporary List of Voters (DPS), and Final Voter List (DPT); Low accuracy of logistic calculation including the time span of distribution to remote areas; and lack of and delayed budget.Meanwhile some non-technical problems are single candidacy cases in some areas, ambiguous legal status of the candidates, low rate of public participation, money politic, and use of intimidation and violence.
Referring to the existing problems, the government recommends some points for the draft discussion next April. Some points to be revised are: the budget for the election can be taken either from local budget (APBD) or state budget (APBN), there should be sanctions for any party who do not submit their candidates; the minimum supporters requirement for independent candidates should not be based on the amount of people but based on the amount of DPT in previous election; the resignation of Civil Servant/ TNI – Polri as well as the member of DPR, DPD, and DPRD who become the candidates; the definition of incumbent; and a firm action to annul the results if money politic is proven.
The draft that has been submitted to DPR contains some points that might be the solutions for the existing problems, such as the proposal that the budget comes from APBN. By this mechanism, it ishoped that the fund withdrawal process will be faster so that the logistics can soon be distributed especially to remote areas. Meanwhile the idea to set some sanctions to any party that do not send their candidates is hoped to solve the single candidacy cases. Moreover, the minimum ID requirements that based on DPT seems to be more realistic for independent candidates so that the competition in the election will be fair.
On the other hand, there are still some points that need to be added for the revision to produce more comprehensive solutions for the problems occurring in the previous election. The new act must ensure the success of 2017 election and further as well as bring more benefits for the people. By this revision, it is hoped that people participation both in practical politic by giving their vote and in more strategic role like getting themselves involved in the preparation, on the day event, and monitoring the election will increase. This revision is also hoped to be a guidance for any technical matters like how to use campaign and promotion attributes in society in order to attract more voters.
In general, the new act must also rule out the procedure of KPU in accepting and following up the registration of the candidates who are still in legal process or already finished the process. KPU should be able to verify all candidates’ legal status both from the documents checking and by coordinating with other agencies such as the Police and the Court or other agencies. KPU and Bawaslu as the organizer should be in the frontline in organizing the election while society represented by DPR can join to participate by creating a better electoral system. By this revision, it is hoped that the election will be much better in the future.
by: Samsul Mawardi Hartono, political observer, residing in Palembang, South Sumatera
