The Election Budget Is Pressured, The 2024 Presidential Election Is Still More Expensive

Illustration (Ilham and Andri Winarko VOI)

JAKARTA - Ahead of the 2024 General Election, three candidates are ready to contest winning the eighth presidential seat for the 2024-2029 period. The public is advised not to remain silent, but to be smart and active to find out who deserves the three candidates to accept the voices of the people.

The desired hope from the results of the 2024 democratic party, the Indonesian people get leaders, representatives of the people, and political parties with integrity, trust, honesty, responsibility, and of course not corruption. Integrity is one of the pillars in the political, economic and social structure, as well as a foundation in government and organizations that uphold accountability and transparency.

Even though in reality on the ground, integrity is so easy to say and memorize, it is difficult if you don't want to be called difficult to implement in the scope of government, organization, and society. One of them is about transparency for campaign costs that are owned and will be used from each candidate pair of candidates (paslon) for president and vice presidential candidates who will compete in the 2024 presidential election.

Head of state, Joko Widodo in the middle of last year through platform X (formerly twitter) said the costs needed for the implementation of the 2024 General Election and Regional Head Elections are estimated at IDR 110.4 trillion. Jokowi asked his staff to recalculate the costs so that preparations for celebrating the democratic party every five years could be better.

"The election on February 14, 2024 and simultaneous regional elections in November 2024 is estimated to need a budget of up to IDR 110.4 trillion, for KPU IDR 76.6 trillion and Bawaslu IDR 33.8 trillion. I ask that it be calculated in more detail, both the APBN and APBD, so that it can be prepared in stages," Jokowi said in a post on his official Twitter account @jokowi on Monday (11/4/2022).

The State Prepares The Cost Of The Presidential Election For One Round

Contesting with 3 candidate candidate pairs is predicted to be 2 rounds. Meanwhile, the budget approved for the 2024 General Election during a hearing (RDP) between Commission II of the DPR, KPU and Bawaslu at the end of September 2023 is only enough for one round. The budget approved by the DPR for the General Election Commission (KPU) is IDR 28.3 trillion and the Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) is IDR 11.6 trillion.

Chairman of the Indonesian KPU Hasyim Asy'ari explained that the KPU budget ceiling in 2024 approved by the DPR was Rp. 28,365,496,586,000, from the proposed budget required by the KPU to reach Rp. 44,737,909,334,000. He mentioned the budget approved by the DPR for activities from the beginning of preparations for the 2024 General Election, starting from the regional elections to the presidential election for one round.

"The new indicative of the KPU in 2024 does not include the budget of the president and vice president of the second round," said Hasyim

Details of KPU activities for the 2024 General Election include; Socialization/recovery/technical guidance stages: Rp172.3 billion, Suggestions and infrastructure in the field of information and communication technology as well as electoral technical training: Rp370 billion, Management, procurement, reports, and logistics documentation: Rp2.44 trillion, Formation/selection, honorarium, and operations of the Adhoc Agency: Rp18.6 trillion, Collection, recapitulation, and determination of results: Rp2.60 trillion, legal advocacy, resolution of election disputes, and regulation preparation: Rp27.30 billion, Campaign and promise oaths: Rp886.64 billion, operational and non-operative expenditures: Rp2.6 trillion and 4 DOB Pilkada: Rp974.35 billion

The approved budget ceiling for Bawaslu is IDR 11,605,527,974,000, which also only reaches the first round of presidential elections. The details are as follows: Management Support Program IDR 1,362,618,246,000 and Election Implementation Program in the Democracy Process IDR 10,242,909,728,000.

According to the Indonesian KPU Commissioner, Yulianto Sudrajat has now submitted a proposal for additional costs if the presidential election reaches two rounds. "The KPU has not yet received a budget of Rp. 17,346 trillion from the total proposal. The budget that has not yet entered DIPA is needed to finance the expenditure for the 2024 presidential election in the second round," he said in a statement received by VOI, Monday, November 13.

The 2024 Presidential Election Is Predicted To Be 2 Rounds

The General Election Commission (KPU) of the Republic of Indonesia, Monday (13/11) has appointed presidential and vice presidential candidates to compete in the 2024 presidential election. There are three pairs, namely Anies Baswedan and Muhaimin Iskandar, Ganjar Pranowo and Mahfud MD, as well as Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming as presidential and vice presidential candidates officially appointed through the Decree of the Indonesian KPU Number 1632 of 2023.

"It has been declared eligible as a pair of presidential and vice presidential candidates for the 2024 Simultaneous Elections," said the Coordinator of the Technical Division for the Implementation of the Indonesian KPU Election Idham Holik

Based on Law Number 7 of 2017 concerning General Elections Article 416 it reads, 'The presidential and vice-presidential candidate pairs are declared to have won one round if they get more than 50 votes out of the number of votes with at least 20% votes in each province spread across more than half the number of provinces in Indonesia'.

On this basis, a number of political analysts believe that the 2024 presidential election will take place in two rounds. The results of a number of survey institutions compiled stated that there was not a single candidate whose electability was close to 50 percent.

The Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) Denny JA regarding the electability of three pairs of candidates for president and future vice presidential candidates in the 2024 presidential election, is predicted to take place in two rounds of the 2024 presidential election. In a survey held in the period 4-12 September 2023, the Prabowo-Gibran pair is superior to the other two pairs with an electability of 39.3%.

Cost Details For Presidential Election Campaign

From the results of VOI's search, the amount of the figure issued and officially reported to Bawaslu from the two candidate candidate candidate pairs in 2019 for the campaign did not reach 1 trillion.

General Treasurer of the National Winning Board (BPN) Thomas Djiwandono said the biggest expenditure of campaign funds was used for candidate pair campaign materials, public meetings, and face-to-face meetings.

"According to records at that time, the campaign materials were Rp. 60 billion. After that the face-to-face meeting was Rp. 21 billion, the design of props was Rp. 8.8 billion, and so on. Contribution funds from individuals were approximately Rp. 9.3 billion. The group contributed Rp1.1 billion and political parties Rp. 4.5 billion," he said.

He said Sandiaga Uno also gave donations whose value was not much different from Prabowo Subianto's. "I forgot the value," he said.

The General Treasurer of the National Campaign Team (TKN) Sakti Wahyu Trenggono said that the largest receipt of TKN campaign funds came from entrepreneurs. The two pairs did not donate a penny of funds at all.

"So several political parties contributed to us amounting to Rp 79.7 billion, then donations from the group of Rp 251 billion. The individual donation is 252 people. So the total is around Rp 21.8 billion," he said.

The largest expenditure of TKN is for operational costs, which amounted to IDR 597.9 billion. The funds are used for operations including costs for campaign props and advertisements.

How Much It Costs To Become President

West Java (Jabar) Governor Ridwan Kamil once said that the cost of becoming president reached IDR 8 trillion. Deputy Chairperson of the Gelora Party Fahri Hamzah also said that the figure was not much different, namely, IDR 5 trillion. Sandiaga Uno, who has participated in the contest as a vice presidential candidate accompanying Prabowo Subianto in 2019, revealed that in his discussion with Rossi, he had spent IDR 1 trillion. Sandi also mentioned that several of his assets were sold to finance the contestation in the 2019 presidential election.

Jusuf Kalla also said that he had spent Rp. 3 trillion when participating in the 2014 presidential election contesting with Jokowi. According to the man who is usually called JK in an interview on Youtube with Kompas, the biggest cost was to protect the witness with a value of Rp. 1 trillion.

This senior politician from the Golkar Party emphasized that the most important thing about a presidential and vice-presidential candidate is not a large fund, but an individual introduction.

The Board of Trustees of the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) Titi Anggraini questioned the openness of politicians who called political costs high. Due to the fact, based on the official report of each political party and campaign costs reported to Bawaslu, the figures that did not match those expressed by the politicians.

"If we look at the Report on Revenue and Expenditure Funds (LPPDK) in the 2019 Presidential Election, interesting things have been found. From the report of the two candidate pairs competing in 2019, the figure did not even touch Rp1 trillion. The National Winning Agency (BPN) Prabowo Subianto Sandiaga Uno only reported Rp213.2 billion. Meanwhile, Joko Widodo's National Campaign Team (TKN) Ma'ruf Amin reported Rp606.7 billion," he said.

Titi put the question, maybe the data reported so far is only the tip of the iceberg. There are transactions below the surface that may not be accessible openly to the public. He also revealed that the 2024 presidential election is a contestation that is more expensive than the previous and also dark presidential election.

"The explanation is more expensive, in this presidential election there will be many transactions between fellow political parties and various elements of interest to win each candidate. And every transaction that occurs will not be known to the public. The public will only be treated to various meetings between political elites and also cannot know the contents of the meetings of the elites," he said.