Regional Elections and Effectiveness of Regional Governments

Kompas/Handining

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Regional autonomy is basically a situation where local residents organize and manage their own households, a responsibility handed over by the national government to the autonomous regions. If the regions arrange and manage their own households, local residents, through regional representatives and regional heads, will be able to make and implement regional policies in accordance with the expectations and aspirations of local residents.

The effectiveness of local governments is key to the success of delegating regional autonomy to provinces, regencies and cities. Local governments can be concluded as effective if local policies [regional budgets (APBD), local bylaws of non-APBD and regional head regulations) are not only formulated in accordance with legislation but also with the aspirations of local people and regional characteristics. Local governments, which are able to make regional policies like this, cannot be called effective, if the regional policies cannot be implemented in reality.

If they cannot be implemented, then good regional policies alone cannot be enjoyed by local people. Therefore, effective local governance is characterized by two things: regional policies that match the expectations and aspirations of locals and public policies that are actually implemented so that the results can be enjoyed by the people.

The question is whether the election of governors, regents and mayors or regional elections, which incur high costs, will be able to support the effectiveness of local governments. The regional elections have a strategic position in creating the effectiveness of local governments because the nominated and elected regional heads hold the role of regional leadership.

The role of leadership cannot be seen only in the formulation and making of regional policies, but also in implementing the regional policies. Regional heads are not alone in making the local policies. This is not only because they have to listen to the voices of local residents (the participation of local residents), but also because the 1945 Constitution requires the holding of elections to elect members of the Regional Legislative Councils (DPRD) as partners of regional heads in the deliberation of regional budgets and non-APBD bylaws.

Regional heads in implementing regional policies are assisted by regional apparatuses. The main role in the implementation of regional policies even lies in the regional apparatuses (offices, agencies, etc.), but under the coordination of the regional heads. In short, the role of local leadership in realizing the effectiveness of local governments is influenced by the structure and performance of DPRD as well as the competence and efficiency of regional bureaucracy.

Political parties (and individuals) as well as voters are two parties that play major roles in getting elected regional heads who have leadership skills. Political parties participating in the elections play a role in preparing and selecting candidates for leaders, while community groups propose individual candidates. With the role of preparing candidates for regional leaders, then political parties will select and hand over cadres who have been tested to be candidates. However, if they do not prepare leader candidates, then political parties will seek candidates from other neighborhoods who are considered to have a wide extent of achievement or support candidates proposed by other parties. Candidate pairs nominated by a political party or a coalition of political parties who have been determined by the provincial chapter of the General Elections Commission (KPU) or Regency/Municipal KPU to become the candidate pairs of heads and deputy heads of the region will be judged by the voters.

The contribution of regional elections to efforts to create effective local government lies in leadership factors, both political leadership and administrative leadership. Political leadership is the ability to influence and convince others to support the proposed policy plans.

The regional heads should seek the support and approval of the DPRD over the proposed regional policy plan. DPRD support and approval are not always easy to obtain. Do the regional heads apply transactional leadership to obtain the support and approval of the DPRD, as applied in many areas [the last one, the Jambi provincial government officials and DPRD members were arrested by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK)] or they are not influenced by two factors. The two factors are the political leadership capability of the regional heads and/or the composition of the factions in the DPRD (how many DPRD seats come from the political parties which are the same as the party of the regional heads).

Political and administrative leadership

There are two opinions about these two factors. The first opinion views the most important factor of political leadership is that the regional heads with political leadership ability will be able to convince and get support from the DPRD even if his party has only minority seats.

The second opinion views that the support of the majority of DPRD members or at least 20 percent of DPRD members who come from the same party with the regional heads constitute a "basic capital" in using their political leadership. This basic capital is not only important in term of the number (simply adding support from other factions), but to get support from other factions (how can regional heads convince other factions if they do not have support from their own party faction in the DPRD in a significant number).

Administrative leadership refers to the ability to direct and control regional apparatuses to implement regional policies into reality. The implementation of regional policies is one of the weak points in the effectiveness of local governments in Indonesia. The main task of regional apparatuses is not to formulate local policies, but to implement them.

Establishment of technical guidance on the implementation, preparation of SOPs (standard operating procedures), preparation of executing officers, community preparation and socialization of policies to the affected communities, inter-agency coordination, procurement of goods and services, budget disbursement, technical implementation, and monitoring and evaluation of their implementation are constitute a number of activities that include implementation. However, in practice for a number of regional officials the implementation activities tend to deal only with a matter of procurement and disbursement of the budget, and their implementation tends to be done by improvisation.

A program is implemented from year to year; the number of its budget increases from year to year, while the results of the program (local policy) implementation in the form of outputs and outcomes or impacts are never evaluated.

Regional elections will contribute to efforts to create effective local governance if the political parties, which propose the candidates, and voters, which determined the elected candidates, are able to see and select candidates for local leaders, who have political and administrative leadership. The answers to the three following questions determine whether the 2018 regional elections will contribute to the creation of effective local governance.

First, is the implementation of the 2018 regional election campaign capable of displaying the political and administrative leadership of the candidates for the regional heads? Second, are the voters interested in following the implementation process of the 2018 regional election campaign? And third, do the voters have the ability to sort and assess the political and administrative leadership of candidates for regional heads?

The candidate pairs for the regional elections were set in February. From the media reporting, it can be concluded that leadership is one of the requirements used by the parties in selecting and determining candidates for regional heads. However, as noted above, political and administrative leadership is only a part of the variables that affect the effectiveness of local governance. The composition of DPRD membership as well as the competence and efficiency of regional institutions are two other factors that are not touched by the regional elections.

Ramlan Surbakti, Professor of Comparative Politics, School of Social and Political Science, Airlangga University; member of Indonesian Academy of Sciences