Regional Elections Strengthen Parties

The general election bill, which combines the Legislative Election Law, the Presidential Election Law and the Regional Election Law, is currently being discussed by the House of Representatives (DPR).

This merger creates a number of crucial issues, not only covering issues that have always been debated, such as the presidential nomination threshold, legislative threshold, the size of the electoral districts and the method of converting votes into seats, but also the issue of the simultaneous or separate implementation of the three types of the elections.

The simultaneity of the presidential election (pilpres) and legislative election (pileg) at the national level has been finalized by the Constitutional Court. Now, the issue that must be discussed by the DPR is whether to divide the elections into national and regional elections, and finally, which elections are held as national elections and which are local elections.

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The design of the system and implementation of the elections should also consider efforts to strengthen our parties and party system. The fundamental weakness of the current party system is the weak relationship between the community (voters/constituents) and parties. One indication of this is the low level of party identification, which is why the relationship between voters and parties is not organic.

Data collected by the Indonesian Survey Institute over more than a decade shows that party identification is less than 15 percent, which means that fewer than 15 percent of the voters feel they have psychological-ideological ties to the parties. This happens, among other factors, because parties present themselves in society very rarely, basically it happens only once every five years.

This weakness makes it easy for the parties to leave their voters. The phenomenon of parties moving from the opposition (elections) to the government (joining the ruling coalition), as did Golkar (2004, 2009 and 2014), PAN (National Mandate Party, 2014), the PPP (United Development Party, 2014) and Gerindra (2019), among others, can be explained by the weak relationship between the parties and voters. On the other hand, voters are also quick to move from one party to another from election to election.

KOMPAS/HERU SRI KUMORO

Representatives of foreign election organizers and embassy representatives of neighboring countries, as part of the General Elections Supervisory Board’s Election Studies Program, visit TPS 1 polling station in Kampung Bekelir, Babakan village, Tangerang district, Tangerang city, to monitor the regional elections on Wednesday (27/6/2018). They were present in their capacity as the. Tangerang had only a single candidate pair, the incumbents Arief Rachadiono-Sachrudin, which had the backing of 10 political parties.

According to a national survey held by Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) at the end of 2017, the estimate for voters moving from one party to another for the 2019 election was around 40 percent on the average. In the 2014 legislative election, according to the SMRC exit poll, it reached around 50 percent.

One way to strengthen the relationship between the parties and voters is to give parties greater presence in society. Parties will have a strong motivation to be present when there is an election. Dividing elections into national and regional elections allows the parties to greet and be present in the community more frequently, thereby helping strengthen their relationship with voters or constituents.

Regional election design

Regional elections include elections for regional leaders and elections for legislative members at the provincial and regency/city levels. The current election design separates elections for the local legislative councils and region heads. Local legislative elections are attached to the national elections, while the region head elections are held separately in a simultaneous way (a combination of provinces and regencies/cities) in three stages: the first stage 269, the second stage 101 and the third stage 171.

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Such an election design, when it comes to the presence or full involvement of political parties, has several shortcomings. First, parties (administrators and legislative candidates) will only have a greater involvement in the national elections because they must ensure that their existence remains, both at the national and provincial and regency level, so that the presence of the parties is more noticeable every five years.

What the public can see is the parties in the winning team for the presidential election.

Second, given that the presidential elections are held simultaneously with the legislative elections, the focus of attention, both from the media and the public, will be on the presidential elections. Many parties and legislative candidates are focused on winning the presidential election. What the public can see is the parties in the winning team for the presidential election.

Attention on legislative candidates may still be strong enough for central legislative candidates, given their close association with the presidential elections. However, the attention given to the legislative elections for provinces and regencies/cities will likely be much smaller.

Third, the simultaneous regional elections do not provide strong incentives for parties to fully mobilize the party machine or their legislators in the regions. In the current regional elections model, the most obvious role of the parties is only to select region head candidates to be supported or promoted.

During the process of winning region head candidacies, there is no obligation for the parties to move fully, especially if the candidates for region heads are not from their own ranks. There are no major political consequences for the parties if they do not move in winning the region head candidacy. It has become common knowledge that in region head elections, those doing most of the work are the candidates’ campaign teams, not the party teams, even though they do exist formally.

Kompas/Hendra A Setyawan

A billboard for the success of the 2020 regional elections (Pikada 2020) is put on at Jalan Siliwangi, Pamulang, South Tangerang, Banten, on Sunday (6/9/2020). Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the simultaneous regional elections will be held on 9 Dec. 2020 instead of 23 Sept.2020 as initially planned.

Therefore, the design of regional elections should combine region head (executive) elections with regional legislative member elections (DPRD). With this model, those present in the community in regional elections are not only the campaign teams for region head candidates, but also party teams and legislative candidate teams, whether individually or collectively. The public will increasingly feel the presence of the parties.

Since there are two levels of regional elections, namely the provincial level and the regency/city level, the next question is whether the local elections in 34 provinces and 514 regencies/cities should be held simultaneously. If all are held at once, the regional elections will become elections with four boxes. One lesson from the implementation of the 2019 national elections is that an election with many boxes can cause complexity and be a heavy burden.

The alternative on offer is to divide regional elections into two parts, namely the provincial elections (governor plus provincial DPRD) and regency/city elections (regent/mayor plus regency/city DPRD). In total, there would then be three elections in five years, all of which would be held nationwide.

According to a number of election practitioners, it would take at least one-and-a-half years to prepare for the national elections and at least one year for regional elections. So, keeping these time constraints in mind, we could carry out national elections, for example in 2024, followed by provincial elections two years later (2026), then regency/city elections the following year (2027), and back to the national elections two years later (2029). There would be sufficient time for election preparation, provided that the election law is not revised every five years, as it is now.

With this election design, political parties would have to be present in society at least three times in five years. The issues discussed by the parties would not only be big issues at the national level but could also include issues at the provincial level as well as at the regency/city level. All levels of party management from the central to the regional level would be able to coordinate more easily to unite in facing the national elections, then the provincial elections and the regency/city elections. Political work and electoral issues managed by the parties could be more integrated and focused.

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From the point of view of voters or society, attention will be increasingly focused. During the national elections, attention will be focused on the presidential and legislative elections for the DPR; during the provincial elections in the elections for governors and legislative members for the provincial DPRD; and during the regency/city elections, attention will be focused on the election of the regents/mayors and the legislative elections for the regency/city DPRD. No election is considered more important than other elections. All have the potential to get maximum attention.

Because the time interval between elections is not too great, there is no opportunity for parties to leave their voters. Inevitably, the relationships must be nurtured.

Both parties and candidates for regional heads will be felt and seen in the community. Because the time interval between elections is not too great, there is no opportunity for parties to leave their voters. Inevitably, the relationships must be nurtured.

In the medium and long term, this pattern can help build a steady relationship between parties and voters/society. Gradually, party constituencies are formed, so that party-society relations become stronger.

Benefits for the national system

The abovementioned designs for national and local elections also have the potential to strengthen the party system and governance nationally. The need for parties to be present more frequently through elections will create the need for the parties to increasingly involve the public.

Based on the experience of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in developing parties in more than 50 countries since 1983, this outreach effort will inevitably encourage the parties in the development of transparency and internal party democracy (Breth and Quibell, 2003).

KOMPAS/WAWAN H PRABOWO

Three motorists, including a relatively older man without a mask, pass by a banner installed by the General Elections Commission (KPU) on Jl. Rawa Mekar Jaya in Serpong, Tangerang, Monday (7/9/2020). The KPU’s banner reminds the public to comply with the Covid-19 health protocol during the 2020 regional elections, which has seen large crowds of hundreds of supporters flout public health and safety measures to cheer on their preferred candidates. Many fear that the simultaneous regional elections will give rise to multiple clusters of Covid-19 infection, even as Indonesia continues to see a daily increase in new cases

This is logical, because involving more people in activities will only last a long time if there is transparency and sufficient space (internal democracy) for public participation in the parties. In the short term, community involvement can be sustained through mobilization (for example through financial incentives), but that will be difficult to uphold in the long term.

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In addition, this design also makes the elections seem to be sequential tiered, from national elections to provincial elections, then to regency/city elections. When provincial elections take place, candidates can draw inspiration and context from the national government programs in their vision and mission.

During regency/city elections, candidates can use the provincial government programs and context as inspiration for their vision and mission. On the other hand, during national elections, pressing issues in the provinces and regencies/cities can be contextualized for national government programs for presidential candidates or members of the national legislature. The continuity of the programs from the center to the regions and vice versa gets a political way to be accommodated.

Kompas

Djayadi Hanan

Therefore, the design of national and regional elections is an institutional effort to strengthen the national political system. Of course, this must be combined with other efforts, such as reforming the political financing system and the political parties.

Djayadi Hanan, Paramadina University Political Science Lecturer; Executive Director of the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI)

(This article was translated by Hyginus Hardoyo).