The Single Candidate in Regional Elections

KOMPAS/HERU SRI KUMORO

Ahead of the South Tangerang mayoral election in 2020, billboards, banners and posters of a number of public figures and political parties are installed in public spaces, such as roadsides in South Tangerang city, Banten, as seen on Sunday (24/11/2019). Some of the figures have openly declared to run for mayor while others do not mention clearly their intention to take part in the election. The banners, posters, and billboards are also found in a number of regions that will carry out simultaneous regional elections in 2020.

The trend of a single candidate pair is expected to still occur in the simultaneous regional elections in 2020 (Kompas, 9/3/2020).

The single candidate in the regional elections has been debated since the simultaneous regional elections in 2015. The problem is, why do we still allow for the single candidate? Is choosing a single candidate in the elections in accordance with electoral and democratic principles? These questions reappear because the principle of electoral democracy requires competition and accountability.

The democratic system encourages competition between people and people, not people with "objects" or images. The increasing number of single candidates in the simultaneous regional elections in 2020 is not an ordinary phenomenon. In it there are problems for our local democracy in the future.

Political accountability

The right to elect and be elected is closely related to the concept of accountability in a representative system. In representative theory, a representative is considered to be the guardian of the persons being represented (delegates or trustees). Although the principle of representation develops in electing people\'s representatives, in the development of general elections (including the regional elections) to elect public officials such as the governors and regents/mayors, in essence there is a dimension of representativeness in it.

Political representation is the basis of the concept of political representation because those who hold the sovereignty (read: power) are people. In the context of political accountability, democracy does not give it empty boxes (empty pictures). The owner of accountability is not an object. A single candidate who is opposed to an empty box does not have a strong support in democracy.

The reason is that voters cannot demand political responsibility. In fact, one of the consequences of electoral democracy is the political responsibility of everyone who is elected by the people as an official and/or regional head.

In the case of the simultaneous regional elections in 2018, how could the empty box that won in Makassar be asked for political accountability by the voters? This dilemma was never thought of by the Constitutional Court there is no rule against single candidates in the regional elections.

The power vacuum is unknown in electoral democracy because the winner is the one given the mandate.

In addition to the basic issues of political representation and accountability, the empty boxes in regional elections also contain three fundamental problems after the elections. First, there is a power vacuum. Political power cannot be occupied by an empty box because that right is inherent in the citizens. As a result, the mayor of Makassar is held by the task executor. The power vacuum is unknown in electoral democracy because the winner is the one given the mandate.

Second, the post-election power vacuum causes the loss of "political leadership" at the local level. The regional head is an embodiment of local political leadership that is expected to encourage not only a better process of democratization, or a breakthrough of policies that are pro-people, but also brings hope of an increase in people\'s welfare in the period of their administration.

The phenomenon of the rise of the single candidates in the regional elections can be an indication of the decline in our electoral democracy. The upward trend in the single candidates can be caused by several possibilities, among others, first, to avoid fierce political competition on the one hand, and facilitate electoral victory, because the winning rate of a single candidate is far higher than the loser with an empty box.

The second possibility is to reduce relatively unlimited political costs in the local elections. By buying up the party\'s votes in the nomination process, the candidate pairs of regional heads who want to compete at the minimum obtain certainty in the political costs that will be incurred. The third possibility is that political parties can be seen as obstructing voter rights because voters are being faced with a fait accompli with the single candidate so that alternative candidates do not appear, to say nothing of the requirements of independent candidates that are so complex and difficult.

Such voter access restrictions can be considered part of a broad political party oligarchy strategy. In fact, the party is the only organization recognized by the 1945 Constitution to be a source of political leadership at the national and regional levels. Limiting the right of nomination creates wide political deviation because the regional elections do not provide hope for change. In a more strategic context, the single candidates in regional elections actually eliminate the essence of elections because elections require fair competition, with the hope that voters can actively participate in achieving common political goals and building better governance.

Oligarchy transformation

What lessons can be learned from the single candidates in the upcoming 2020 regional elections? In my opinion, there is the phenomenon of electoral ruling oligarchy. The electorate is dominated by strong people (oligarchs) who came and were transformed in the Reform Era through a decentralization frame (regional autonomy). Decentralization gives birth to the phenomenon of fighting over strategic positions (political offices) and bureaucracy at the local level. This is a way to strengthen the power structure based on family, dynasty, group, and the interests of a handful of people. It is not only the electoral process that is on the agenda to be controlled, but also the strategic positions of the government, the control of political parties, and ultimately co-opting strategic civil power organizations for mass mobilization in political battles.

The implication of electoral ruling oligarchy is similar to the growth of dominant forces in an authoritarian state.

The implication of electoral ruling oligarchy is similar to the growth of dominant forces in an authoritarian state. Elections serve as a barrier to the emergence of a balancing force that is considered a threat. Moreover, the electoral ruling oligarchy essentially kills civil power and the power of civil political organizations. In fact, the existence of both is very important in encouraging the growth of democracy at the local level. Democracy without civil society and the strength of autonomous civil political organizations from the intervention and controls of the rulers is only an "empty" democracy. Will Kymlicka once said "no civil society, no democracy", for without a civil society, democracy does not exist.

The character of an electorate controlled by the oligarchs can be described as the concentration and centralization of power in a group or strong people. Usually the politics that are developed is exclusive, but the discourse that is built is inclusive (open). In fact, in practice, power is exercised in an authoritarian or oligarchic nature by taking into account the interests of power for its own group.

The development of local elections in the framework of such an electoral ruling oligarchy endangers our democracy at the local level because the political practice that occurs is actually not democracy, but the bias toward monarchy or power that rests in one camp. At its nadir there will be a strengthening of traditionally managed political-government practices. Such practices have actually been corrected in the Reform Era because the adverse impacts on the lives of the wider community will be felt for years.

Moch Nurhasim, Researcher at the Political Research Center, LIPI