Commission II Of The House Of Representatives Agrees That The Governor Will Be Elected By The DPRD, But The Regent And Mayor Will Still Have The Direct Election

Photo: Special

JAKARTA - Member of Commission II of the Indonesian House of Representatives, Ahmad Irawan, agrees with the discourse of the governor being elected by the DPRD for budget efficiency. However, according to him, it is better for the election of regents and mayors to be carried out directly by the people.

This was conveyed by Irawan in response to the proposal made by President Prabowo Subianto regarding the improvement of the electoral system in the Golkar Anniversary yesterday.

"The best thing in my opinion is that the governor is chosen by the DPRD only. The consideration is that the governor's power and authority are only an extension of the central government. But for regents/mayors, it is better to stay direct," said Ahmad Irawan, Saturday, November 14.

Irawan said, there are several reasons why the governor should be chosen by the DPRD as proposed by Prabowo. "First, we have to start with a perspective on how the regions manage and take care of their own government affairs based on the principle of regional autonomy," he explained.

The regional autonomy principle referred to by Irawan is contained in Article 18 Paragraph (2) of the 1945 Constitution and Article 18 paragraph 4 of the 1945 Constitution as constitutional provisions that the Governor, Regent and mayor are elected democratically. From the regional autonomy principle, Pilkada is a manifestation of the policy of decentralizing politics.

"So the regions have autonomy to choose for themselves who the regional heads are. In the design of our decentralization policy, regional autonomy is in the Regency/City government. The province performs auxiliary duties (deconcentration) or as an extension of the hands of the central government," explained Irawan.

According to Irawan, the principles and constitutional practices can be interpreted that the Pilkada can be carried out directly or indirectly (direct democracy/indirect democracy).

"So the people are directly elected in the Pilkada or indirectly through the Provincial/Regency/City DPRD, it is as democratic as well as still in accordance with the principles of constitutionalism," he explained.

"Because members of the Provincial, Regency and City DPRDs, their members were also elected through general elections (political representation) as stipulated in Article 18 paragraph 3 of the 1945 Constitution," continued Irawan.

Furthermore, the member of the Commission in the DPR who has a scope of work on the Election assessed that the transfer of regional head elections to the DPRD could streamline the budget for the implementation of the Pilkada.

Because, said Irawan, the dismantling of the policy for the implementation of regional elections in Indonesia has not been running efficiently.

"Regarding the principle of efficiency, this is the principle/principles that we make the basis for formulating policies/technics for organizing elections. Efficiency depends on our legal policy which is regulated by law," he said.

Irawan assessed that efficiency is a mere technical problem. The important thing to do is so that the implementation of the Pilkada is still in the corridor and the principle of constitutionalism.

According to reasonable reasoning, we can get a higher quality regional head at an efficient cost if chosen by the DPRD. We have tried to make it efficient through simultaneous elections, it turns out that our intention is not achieved in efficiency. The implementation is actually expensive and complicated," said Irawan.

"Once again, this efficiency is only a technical issue. When it comes to the basic principle of constitutionalism, it is a democratic election. We are still exercising various opinions in such a way," added the legislator from the East Java V electoral district.

On the other hand, Irawan said that Prabowo's proposal regarding the governor being elected by the DPRD was in line with the Draft Law (RUU) on Political Packages (Pemilu, Pilkada & Political Parties) which had been included in the Priority Prolegnas for 2025 DPR RI.

This package of Law on Elections or Political Omnibus Law will discuss chapters regarding Elections.

In addition, the bill also discusses Pilkada, Political Parties to the law of the electoral dispute.

"This is good for us to discuss earlier. Pak Prabowo and Pak Bahlil have started. His thinking is in accordance. However, Pak Prabowo is the President who holds the power of the legislators. His heart and mind are good," said Irawan.

The point of his statement that I read was how we improve our election. That's why we encourage the revision of the Political Package Law earlier so that it is not biased. So the quality of our laws can be better," added the member of the council who also served in the Legislation Body (Baleg) of the DPR.

Previously, President Prabowo Subianto Prabowo said that the current Pilkada system was quite expensive, so he suggested that governors should be chosen indirectly through the DPRD as representatives of the people, such as in several other countries.

He also compared regional head elections in Indonesia with sufficient neighboring countries through the DPRD, such as in Malaysia, Singapore and India.

So far, according to Prabowo, Indonesian citizens have chosen their own leaders, ranging from the level of regents, mayors, governors, to presidents. Prabowo considered the many elections to be inefficient because they took a lot of the state budget.

The thing that Prabowo said at the 60th Anniversary of the Golkar Party was then agreed by the General Chairperson of the Golkar Party Bahlil Lahadalia. Bahlil also said that democracy in Indonesia is too expensive, so it needs to be streamlined.

Bahlil also considered Prabowo's proposal to be a concept to adapt to the democratic system in Indonesia.