The Minister Of Home Affairs Agrees On Prabowo's Proposal For Regional Head Elections Through The DPRD

JAKARTA - Minister of Home Affairs (Mendagri) Tito Karnavian approved that the plan that surfaced related to the implementation of regional head elections (pilkada) could be carried out and represented through the regional people's representative council (DPRD).

According to Tito, learning from the implementation of the 2024 Simultaneous Pilkada, there is a big cost that must be spent in this direct democratic party and can actually be done through other democratic mechanisms.

"I agree, of course, we will see for ourselves how much the costs for the regional elections are. Not to mention that there are several areas that we have seen of violence, I have always said that the regional elections are asymmetric, one of which is through the DPRD," Tito said at the Presidential Palace, Jakarta, as reported by ANTARA, Monday, December 16.

Although agreeing to the election proposal, it is better to hold it in the DPRD, he said the proposal requires a study, including under his ministry.

The Minister of Home Affairs is still waiting for other studies from various parties such as the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR) and academics.

Tito promised that the proposed regional elections in the DPRD would be seriously discussed under his ministry considering that the rules regarding the regional head elections have been included in the 2025 National Legislation Program (Prolegnas).

"Be sure to discuss it. 'One of them is already in the National Legislation Program. In the National Legislation Program, if I'm not mistaken, including the Election Law and the Regional Head Election Law," he said.

Previously, on Thursday (12/12), President Prabowo Subianto conveyed the idea of improving the political system in Indonesia because it costs high and is inefficient when compared to neighboring countries.

"I think today is the most important thing that was conveyed by the General Chairperson of the Golkar Party DPP earlier that we all feel our democracy that we are running, there is one or there are several things that we have to fix together. I think we have to improve our system," said Prabowo.

From the DPR side, the Deputy Chairperson of the DPR's Budget Agency (Banggar) Jazilul Fawaid suggested that the regional elections at the provincial level to choose the candidate pair for governor and deputy governor to be carried out through the DPRD of each province are no longer directly elected by the people because they are expensive.

According to Jazilul, the high election costs for governors can be seen in the 2024 Pilkada. For example, the Government must spend more than IDR 1 trillion for the West Java Pilkada, not to mention the cost of selecting governors in other regions.

"It's not a small budget. If the Rp1 trillion is given to a district in one of the provinces, in NTT for example, it can make the economy rise," said Jazilul.