By: Abdul Gafur*
The 79th Anniversary of the Independence Day of the Republic of Indonesia will be the year of the beginning of a new government, 2024 will be the last year of President Jokowi’s government after leading Indonesia for 10 years or two terms of presidential leadership, October 20, 2024, President Jokowi will hand over the reins of national leadership to Prabowo Subianto as president-elect, in addition to the national leadership that will change, 2024 will also go through a new phase in the Regional Head Election (Pilkada) system.
The 2024 Pilkada will be recorded in history as the largest simultaneous Pilkada ever held, the Pilkada which will be held on November 27, 2024, will hold the Election of Governor and Deputy Governor, Election of Regent and Deputy Regent and Election of Mayor and Deputy Mayor, with a total of 545 regions that will hold elections with details of 37 Provinces, 415 Regencies, and 93 Cities. In this simultaneous Pilkada, only the DIY Province and Administrative Cities in the DKJ will not participate in the Pilkada, according to the rules, regions in these areas are not elected through Pilkada.
The implementation of the Pilkada is actually an effort to strengthen the consolidation of democracy at the local level, this direct election is not new in the Indonesian political process, since 2004 after the first direct presidential election was held, the following year in 2005 the Pilkada was also held directly for the first time as part of the demands for reform and the implementation of the regional autonomy system, but 2024 will be the first in the implementation of simultaneous direct Pilkada which is followed by all autonomous regions in Indonesia.
The simultaneous regional elections that are carried out directly are a manifestation of democratization, theoretically direct elections are an important instrument of democratization itself, through direct elections, the community can involve themselves in real terms in determining the head of government who will later produce public policy. Huntington in translating Schumpeter’s opinion on democracy explains that democracy procedurally is essentially the implementation of general elections, in addition, Huntington also added that elections are not enough, but free, honest and competitive elections must correlate with freedom of opinion, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press and the existence of opposition groups that can criticize the authorities without worry.
2024-08-17 14:37:41