JAKARTA - Executive Director of the Democracy, Economic & Constitution Institute (Deconstitute), Harimurti Adi Nugroho said that the simultaneous elections at the center and regions had harmed the quality of Indonesia's democracy.
"In terms of theoretical and empirical data, the election that has just been held is actually detrimental to the quality of democracy. There should be a gap between the simultaneous central elections and simultaneous regional elections for at least 2 years. Don't hold it again in the same year," he said in a written statement, Friday, May 30, 2025.
Harimurti revealed that this had been stated by Deconstitute when submitting his views as Amicus Curiae to the Constitutional Court (MK), Wednesday, May 28, 2025, regarding the material testing case Number 135 / PUU-XXII / 2024 related to election laws and regional elections.
In the Amicus Curiae, Deconstitute highlighted the simultaneous elections with five ballot boxes (President/Vice President, DPR, DPD, Provincial DPRD, and Regency/City DPRD) which were held with simultaneous elections of regional heads (Governor, and Regents/Mayors) in the same year, as implemented in 2024.
"This practice causes the phenomenon of voter fatigue which has an impact on decreasing the level of voter participation, election process, and quality of election results," added Harimurti.
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In addition, the simultaneous elections with five ballot boxes and simultaneous elections of regional heads in the same year, made election organizers less time to carry out the stages of the election.
Deconstitute, continued Harimurti, also highlighted the simultaneous election model with five ballot boxes (President/Vice President, DPR, DPD, Provincial DPRD and Regency/City DPRD) which are considered to burden voters cognitively, because they are faced with five ballots at once and must consider too many candidates from the central and regional levels.
"This reduces the quality of political decisions and encourages voters to use a shallow heuristic approach and causes voter fatigue," he said.
In terms of supervision, Deconstitute assessed, Bawaslu is faced with simultaneous supervision of various types of elections with different characteristics and potential violations. As a result, supervision becomes non-optimal and many violations are not detected or handled adequately.
Not to mention when we talk about the impact on institutions and regeneration of political parties. The simultaneous election of five boxes forced political parties to recruit for legislative elections at three levels at once. This has a serious impact on the quality of candidate members recruited by the party," concluded Harimurti.
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