Face-to-Face Campaigns Can Only Be Followed By 100 People

JAKARTA - Chairman of the General Election Commission (KPU) RI Arief Budiman will set limits on the number of face-to-face campaign participants in the 2020 Pilkada. The maximum number of campaign participants is 100 people.

This provision will be contained in the revision of KPU Regulation Number 4 of 2017 which regulates the election campaign for governor-deputy governor, mayor-deputy mayor and regent-deputy regent.

"We have discussed in a coordination meeting with the government and the Indonesian Parliament, the possibility of up to 100 campaign participants," said Arief in a discussion at Graha BNPB, East Jakarta, Wednesday, August 26.

Arief said, initially the Ministry of Home Affairs suggested that the campaign participants be filled with a maximum of 50 people to minimize the spread of COVID-19. However, there were a number of members of the Indonesian Parliament who did not agree with the limitation of 50 people.

"Several members of Commission II DPR RI asked (restrictions on campaign participants) to be added. Because, the number of 50 people is too little," said Arief.

In fact, the 2020 Pilkada participants can also campaign online using a virtual platform to deliver their campaign materials. This can be an alternative to limiting face-to-face campaign participants.

It's just that, said Arief, it is possible that there will be technical problems in implementing online campaigns. "For certain areas, the use of online cameras such as zoom meetings has limited signal, so voters (campaign participants) are not familiar with its use," said Arief.

Furthermore, Arief also proposed to prospective regional head candidates who would later register themselves in the 2020 Pilkada to make campaign props that are more useful during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Regarding the proposed campaign materials, people used to print shirts and hats. Now (in the PKPU 4/2017 revision) we have also included hand sanitizers, makser, and faceshiled, that is allowed," said Arief.

It is known, the 2020 Simultaneous Continuous Pilkada campaign period was carried out for 71 days with a number of stages. From 26 September to 5 December 2020, candidates for regional head are welcome to conduct limited meeting campaigns, face-to-face campaigns, disseminate campaign materials, install campaign tools, including campaign activities on social media and online.

Then, from September 26 to December 5, regional head candidates are also allowed to participate in public debates between candidate pairs.

Then on November 22 to December 5, regional head candidates may post campaign advertisements through mass, print and electronic media.

It was continued from 6 to 8 December 2020 that the calm period and cleaning of campaign props had entered. Until finally, December 9th was voting day.