KPK Reminds Candidates For Regional Heads To Beware Of Sponsoring Assistance From Entrepreneurs

JAKARTA - Deputy Chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Nawawi Pomolango reminded regional head candidates to be careful in accepting donations from parties sponsoring them in the midst of the 2020 Regional Head Election (Pilkada). This request was conveyed by Nawawi because from the KPK internal survey in 2018, more 80 percent of regional heads admit that their activities in political contestation are assisted by donors.

"The results of the KPK survey in 2018 showed as many as 82.3 percent of the candidates for regional heads interviewed stated that there were donors in the funding of the pilkada. In fact, the funding of the pilkada by sponsors was not only limited to the campaign period," Nawawi said as quoted from his written statement after providing provisioning. candidate for regional head of North Sulawesi and West Nusa Tenggara, Thursday, November 5.

Sponsorship in the midst of the Pilkada is rife because based on a survey conducted by this anti-graft agency in 2018, it shows that the need for funds is quite large, reaching Rp. 65 billion. However, on the other hand, most candidates for regional head do not have such large funds. This is because, based on the Regional Head Candidates' Assets Report submitted by the KPK, the average total assets of a pair of candidates only reached IDR 18.03 billion or lower than that to minus IDR 15.17 million.

The needs that must be met by regional head candidates usually consist of several things such as dowries to supporting political parties, advertisements or advertisements in various media including banners to t-shirts, socialization to constituents consisting of transportation to limited meetings and general meetings, honorarium for witnesses on the spot. voting (TPS), gratuities to voters in the form of goods, money, promises or buying votes such as dawn attacks, as well as legal settlement costs for election victory conflicts.

Nawai reminded regional head candidates who collaborated with donors in this democratic party to be careful and vigilant. This is because most of these donors are entrepreneurs who usually have other purposes, such as obtaining licensing convenience in running a business, freedom to participate in government procurement of goods and services, and security in running their business.

"The KPK survey in 2018 asked the regional heads, do people who donate or donors expect a reply at a later date when they take office? The answer is that most of the local candidates, or 83.80 percent of 198 respondents, said they would meet these expectations when they took office. , "said Nawawi.

Previously, when opening the activity, the Acting Governor of North Sulawesi Province, Agus Fatoni, mentioned the importance of the election process. The method and implementation of regional elections that are good and with integrity, said Agus, will ultimately bring up regional heads of quality and integrity.

"The election process is important. From the political process, a good regional head election with integrity will produce a regional head who is good and with integrity too. Pilkada process with integrity is the responsibility of all of us, the government, KPU, Bawaslu, KPK, and political parties, "said Agus.

From the government side, continued Agus, the implementation of regional elections is not the final goal. The main objective is in accordance with the target of regional autonomy, namely realizing the process of political democracy through political parties and DPRDs, fulfilling the division of administrative authority between the central and regional governments, including in bureaucratic management and financial resources, and realizing an increase in the human development index, so that the welfare of the local community becomes better. .

Meanwhile, the Head of the Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) of North Sulawesi Province Herwyn JH Malonda emphasized the need for neutrality of the State Civil Apparatus (ASN) in the regional elections. In North Sulawesi, according to him, until now there have been 69 ASNs recommended by Bawaslu to be sanctioned by the Civil Service Officer (PPK).

"Based on the ranking of money politics vulnerability, North Sulawesi is in the second top rank. Therefore, the most important thing is education to constituents to be able to vote for regional heads that they think have integrity. The mode of money politics is now sophisticated, not only distributing money, but also entering into e-money system, including providing internet data packages to residents, "said Herwyn.

Furthermore, the Daily Executive (Plh) of the General Election Commission (KPU) of the Republic of Indonesia, Ilham Saputra, asked all regional heads and voters to jointly create elections with integrity. One of them is by encouraging pilkada participants to sign an integrity pact and developing an application for the Campaign Funds Information System (Sidakam) which aims to disclose information.

"This is to encourage information disclosure in and out of campaign funds for the 2020 Pilkada participants," he said.

It is known, the next debriefing is planned to be held in the Riau Islands on November 10, 2020 for four other regions, namely the Riau Islands, Lampung, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), and East Kalimantan.