Bawaslu: The Pilkada Situation Is More Prone To Elections

Bawaslu Chairman Rahmat Bagja In Badung Bali/PHOTO: DAFI-VOI

Head of Bawaslu Rahmat Bagja said the simultaneous 2024 Pilkada situation would be more vulnerable than the conditions for the presidential or legislative elections.

"It is more vulnerable, the trend in the regional elections is more vulnerable, because almost all places of unrest are in the regional elections, in the elections there are one or two cases but in the regional elections there are many," he said during the Coordination Meeting for the Preparedness of the 2024 Simultaneous Regional Head Elections in Bali and Nusa Tenggara Regions in Badung, Tuesday, July 30.

According to him, this condition occurs because voters and participants or candidates for regional heads have more closeness, even colored by elements of kinship in the competition.

The level of vulnerability in each election is then mapped by Bawaslu into an election vulnerability index (IKP) which is divided into four dimensions, where according to Bagja, the increasing dimension of contestation and socio-political.

"Four dimensions that we map out in the context of socio-political, election organizers, contestation, and participation, where the dimension of contestation must be problematic, there must be an increasing socio-political context during the election," he said.

Therefore, according to him, important things such as budgets must be available during the nomination stage, because vulnerable situations began to emerge at that time.

"It has been reminded when the nomination is why the budget must exist because at that time there was a mass mobilization, friends who were wary that there had to be a budget," he said.

In the coordination meeting area itself, namely Bali, West Nusa Tenggara, and East Nusa Tenggara, the Indonesian Bawaslu recorded a vulnerability status when the 2024 General Election was moderately vulnerable.

Bagja said that in Bali there are still some areas that are vulnerable, although not more than NTT and NTB, but that is the 2024 election data, while in the 2024 Simultaneous Pilkada he believes he must be more vigilant.

"It is impossible that there will be no incident because the districts/cities that we must be most aware of, are not governors. The election for governors is relatively safe," he said.

According to him, although during the 2024 General Election the status of Bali, West Nusa Tenggara, and East Nusa Tenggara are moderately vulnerable, it is possible that the election vulnerability index will change.

"Usually learning from the previous regional elections, there was a previous election riot, the index must be high. For example, Makassar must be high because there have been previous election riots, it becomes a parameter, later so that mitigation must not occur," said Rahmat Bagja.