Questions For Jokowi: Why Do You Disagree With The 2022 And 2023 Pilkada When The 2020 Pilkada Is Stricted?

Illustrated / VOI

JAKARTA - Executive Director of the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) Khoirunnisa Nur Agustyati questioned President Joko Widodo's attitude in wanting the next regional head election (pilkada) to be held simultaneously in 2024.

This means that Jokowi does not agree with the draft Law on General Elections (RUU Pemilu) proposed by the DPR, which regulates the next regional head elections (pilkada) to be held in 2022 and 2023.

Khoirunnisa is surprised, if Jokowi wants regional elections to be held simultaneously in 2024, that means there will be 272 regions led by acting (Plt) or temporary regional heads.

This is different from Jokowi's strong intention to hold the 2020 Pilkada because he does not want the region to be led by acting as they cannot make strategic policies in the midst of the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"What is confusing is that this reason is contrary to the reason for refusing to postpone the 2020 Pilkada. In fact, if the number of regions is combined, there will be more Plt," said Khoirunnisa when contacted, Monday, February 1.

In fact, according to Khoirunnisa, it is better for the government to normalize the 2017 Pilkada to be continued into 2022 and the 2018 Pilkada to be continued in 2023.

The reason is, in 2024 there will be a national election agenda, such as the presidential, DPR, DPD and DPRD elections. Then, if all regional elections are also held in 2024, it will have implications for the complexity of its implementation.

"Even though the implementation of the national and regional elections is not held on the same day, the stages will surely coincide," he said.

As is well known, Jokowi invited the former spokesman for the Jokowi-Ma'ruf National Campaign Team to the State Palace on Thursday, January 28. A number of people invited were political party officials who supported Jokowi in the 2019 Presidential Election.

PPP politician Arsul Sani uploaded a photo with Jokowi on his Instagram account. Arsul said that one of the agendas discussed by Jokowi was asking his supporting parties to consider the implementation of the regional election.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CKlUl_TscHs/

Jokowi's attitude toward eliminating the 2022 and 2023 Pilkada was seen in the statement of the Director General of Politics and General Government of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Bahtiar. Bahtiar said, the government still wants to implement the rules in Law Number 1 of 2015 concerning Pilkada.

"So, our position on the discourse is that let's run the existing laws in accordance with the mandate of the law, Law Number 10 of 2016 article 201 paragraph 8, we will carry out simultaneous regional elections in 2024," said Bahtiar.

Thus, the Ministry of Home Affairs rejects the contents of the draft Election Law (RUU) which states that the implementation of regional head elections (pilkada) is normalized.

Moreover, said Bahtiar, the current government's focus is to face the COVID-19 pandemic, to overcome various problems from the health aspect to the socio-economic impacts caused by the pandemic.

"Today our main focus is how to quickly overcome the COVID-19 pandemic problem, thank God, now there is a vaccine, our priority now is to save our people and citizens, so of course there are priorities that we must do," he concluded.