2024 Election Budget Proposed To Reach Rp100 Trillion, PAN Value Beyond Common Sense

JAKARTA - The National Mandate Party (PAN) considers the 2024 election budget proposal to be unreasonable because of the significant increase compared to the last 2019 election. The party led by Zulkifli Hasan also asked the KPU and Bawaslu to revise the proposed budgets of Rp. 86.265 trillion and Rp. 22.755 trillion. In total, the proposed budget from the election organizers reaches hundreds of trillions of rupiah. With the proposed budget, PAN Vice-President Viva Yoga Mauladi said that the simultaneous elections, which were considered to save money, were actually a waste. "There is no positive correlation between holding simultaneous elections with efficiency. It is even more wasteful. Even though the basic idea of simultaneous elections is for the sake of efficiency. It doesn't make sense, is irrational, beyond common sense," said Viva to reporters, Wednesday, February 16. Viva reminded that the basic idea of simultaneous elections is to reduce or reduce social, political and economic costs. As well as reducing the burden on local government budgets. "This is not reflected in the proposed election budget by the KPU and Bawaslu," he said.

Moreover, continued Viva, there is always an increase in the budget at every election. Where in the 2019 election amounted to Rp. 25.59 trillion, up 61 percent from the 2014 election of Rp. 15.62 trillion. Therefore, the PAN faction believes that the KPU and Bawaslu must make innovative steps. For example, reducing logistics costs, involving the power of civil society in the process of organizing and supervising elections so that the costs are low.

Viva also advised the KPU and Bawaslu to create a political education program in accordance with the mission of an honest and fair election. According to him, officers at KPPS, PPS, and PPK must be conditioned that their goal of becoming officers is not deviant behavior.