Controversy on the Appointment of Acting Regional Heads

What is the problem with the recent appointment of caretakers or acting (Pj) regional heads? Why is it so loud, controversial and publicly scrutinized? In fact, thus far, the appointment of the acting governor, acting regent and acting mayor, selected from among civil servants, has been relatively peaceful.

The rationale is that the upcoming election of regional heads (pilkada) in 541 regions in 2024 will be made simultaneous nationwide according to the mandate of the Pilkada Law No. 16/2010. Consequently, the model of mid-term or regular regional elections as in 2022 in 101 regions, in 2023 in 170 regions and in 2025 in 270 regions, which is honestly already good -- as regulated in the Pilkada Law No. 8/2015 -- will be dropped.

The government's argument is that the simultaneous elections nationwide will synchronize local-development planning with national-development planning. This is because the President-elect's National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN) 2025-2030 will coincide with the Regional Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMD) of the elected regional heads in 2025-2030 in all regions in Indonesia.

This reasoning is weak. Practically, the RP-JMD is often not connected with the Regional Administration Work Plan (RKPD) and the Regional Revenue and Expenditure Budget (APBD), especially with the RPJMN. In short, the reality is that the planning, budgeting and implementation do not correspond.

The outcome of this ambitious project to make the regional elections simultaneous, made without a careful simulation, was that there were “vacant posts” for regional heads in 271 regions in Indonesia. In accordance with the principle of "no vacuum of power", 271 acting regional heads were then appointed from among the officials of the state bureaucracy (24 governors, 191 regents and 56 mayors). The total population of Indonesia in the 24 provinces that will be governed by civil servants is very large, not less than 240 million people (89 percent).

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Their time leading the region is also very long, in terms of years, some even amounting to almost three years. By decree of the Constitutional Court (MK), the term of office for one period is two and a half years plus one day. This means that there are acting regional heads whose terms of office fall into the category of one period. So far, the acting regional heads have only served for a matter of months, on average.

However, what worried the public was that the acting regional heads of civil servants led the government during the presidential and legislative elections on 14 February 2024 and the simultaneous national elections on 27 November 2024. It is common knowledge that civil servants are easily politicized by those in power, who of course have an interest -- that the party or presidential candidate/regional head candidate of “their preference” wins the election. It is feared that there will be "fraud" that could disrupt the integrity of the Indonesian elections.

In addition, no less worrisome, the new president, who will be sworn-in on 20 October 2024, must oversee the organization of the simultaneous national elections on 27 November 2024 so that they will take place safely and peacefully, as well as honestly and fairly. Meanwhile, he will only have run the government for five weeks. Not to mention the issue of the effectiveness of local administration and sustainable development, which will certainly be difficult for these acting regional heads to implement, especially in the face of the Regional Legislative Council (DPRD) in a political year that tends to have a lot of demands, meaning that there will be a lot of "policy deadlocks".

In addition, their position as state apparatuses that are assigned by the central government to become acting regional heads while concurrently holding structural positions for the state civil apparatus (ASN), with no deputy regional heads, limited authority as acting regional heads and weak ability of political leadership, in an election year, could affect the performance of local administrations in restoring the economy, as instructed by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.

Various noise

First, the appointment of the acting regional head is not transparent and not participatory. After the five acting governors were inaugurated by the Home Minister, Tito Karnavian, on 12 May, the public immediately questioned the process of their appointment. Why would a recently retired police general with no experience in civil administration become the acting governor of West Papua?

Why can the director general of mineral and coal of the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, who is a sectoral person, be appointed as acting governor of Bangka Belitung, and the expert staff for sports culture at the Youth and Sports Ministry be appointed as acting governor of Gorontalo?

Why is it that the director general of regional autonomy at the Home Ministry, who is already quite busy managing 542 autonomous regions, and moreover, is involved in facilitating a well-ordered simultaneous election in 2024, has been demoted to holding the position of acting officer in a remote location in West Sulawesi province? Is there not an expert staff of the Home Minister who can be entrusted with the mandate to be the acting governor there? Surprisingly, the regional secretary of Banten province, whose governor (Wahidin Halim) had been sacked, was assigned as the acting governor of Banten.

A second cause for concern is the appointment of active Indonesian Military (TNI) members as acting regional heads. With the appointment of Brig. Gen. Adi Chandra As'aduddin, who serves as head of Binda Maluku province as acting regent of West Seram, various criticisms have been directed at the government, ranging from the case that the Constitutional Court's decision No. 15/PUU-XX/2022 has been ignored along with the ASN Law No. 5/2014, which outlines the structural positions of ASN without “putting off the TNI/Polri clothes” only applies to ten ministries/agencies excluding regional governments, until the allegation of betrayal of the reforms that have eliminated the dual function of the Armed Force (ABRI). This case also indicates a shaky faith in civil supremacy.

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A third issue is the resistance of the governors. The disappointment of Governor of Southeast Sulawesi Ali Mazi and Governor of North Maluku Abdul Gani Kasuba can be seen from the delay in the inauguration of the acting regent, who was from the central government (not the candidate proposed by the governor) in West Muna and South Buton regencies. In fact, Governor of Central Sulawesi Rusdy Mastura, was reluctant to inaugurate and assigned his deputy governor, Ma'mun Amir, to take the oath, the acting regent of Banggai Islands, Dahri Saleh (head of the government bureau), who is not his man.

After the inauguration, for some reason, the person concerned stated that he was resigning, so Governor Rusdy appointed the Banggai Islands’ regional secretary as the acting regent.

It is unlikely that the commotion about the appointment of acting regional head will stop if the regulations are not improved. There are only 42 acting regional heads who have been sworn in, so there will still be 229 appointments of other acting heads. Likewise, the commotion can develop into various fields, not only related to appointments and inauguration.

At first, Indonesia did not recognize simultaneous regional elections. Pilkada is held in each region according to the end of the term of office of each regional head. After the direct elections were held in 2005, the question arose of the large cost of the implementation, which drained the local budget (APBD).

In order to reduce costs, the province of West Sumatra in 2005 and the province of Special Region of Aceh in 2006 synchronized the election day for the governor with the election of the regent/mayor in most of the regions where the end of the regional head’s office term was fast approaching. It was recorded that at that time there were 14 out of 18 regions in West Sumatra and 20 out of 23 regions in Special Region of Aceh that were made simultaneous.

As a result, financial efficiency was significant, at around 60 percent of the total cost, because the salaries of the simultaneous regional head election officials (governors/regents/mayors) were paid only once. Voters were also not tired (election fatigue) because they did not need to go back and forth to the polling station (TPS) to elect governors and regents/mayors.

These best practices from West Sumatra and Special Region of Aceh later became the embryo of our simultaneous local elections. Two models have developed, namely the simultaneous local elections in stages an sich and the simultaneous local elections in stages leading to the simultaneous national elections.

The legal politics of our pilkada opts for a simultaneous local election to move toward a simultaneous national election. It is just that the year of the election has not yet been made simultaneous with the year of the presidential election (pilpres) and the legislative election (pileg) as stipulated in the Pilkada Law No. 8 of 2015. The presidential and legislative elections will be held in 2024, while the simultaneous national elections will be held in 2027, twenty months after the presidential and legislative elections. With this pause, the burden of the General Election Commission (KPU) as the organizer is not so heavy.

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However, due to some changes in the Regional Election Law No. 10 of 2016, the national simultaneous regional elections were expedited, to be held in 2024, along with the presidential and legislative elections, even though the voting days are not the same. Under this policy, the target is that the presidential, legislative and regional elections are all to be completed in 2024, and the national and local development plans can be synchronized. However, as a consequence, the burden of the KPU is heavy and the term of office of the acting regional head is long.

After the 2019 simultaneous presidential and legislative elections that claimed the lives of nearly 1,000 KPPS officers, the government had time to think again about changing the legal politics of the regional elections by abolishing the simultaneous national elections, but still maintaining the simultaneous elections (2020, 2022 and 2023) in stages. And so, simultaneous local elections in stages are held every five years.

Unfortunately, this idea did not continue with the revision of the Pilkada Law No. 10 of 2016. If only this concept had been followed up by President Jokowi's administration, there would not be the controversy in the appointment of acting regional heads that there is today.

Policy mitigation

Policy mitigation is a necessity that the government should observe in order to avoid chaotic appointment of the acting regional head. Government leaders who are sensitive and visionary (tanggap ing sasmita), of course, will evaluate and act quickly. Such a leader is like a captain of a ship who sees signs of an impending storm, then changes the course that has been planned so that the ship does not sway.

The issuance of a new government regulation (PP) as a guide in the appointment of acting regional heads is very much needed. Not only will it help to comply with the Constitutional Court's decision, but also to improve the old rules of the game for the appointment of acting regional heads, which are no longer compatible with new developments in the situation. The vacancy for the position of the regional head is long, and there is also the task of managing elections and the simultaneous national elections.

It would be better if, before the inauguration of the next batch of regional heads, the government made a new PP first.

The old rules of the game are scattered in two PPs (PPN No 6/2005 and PP No 49/2008 concerning the Election, Approval of Appointments and Dismissal of Regional Heads and Deputy Regional Heads), and two Permendagri (Permendagri No. 74/2016 and Permendagri No. 1/2018 concerning Unpaid Leave for governors and deputy governors, regents and deputy regents, as well as mayors and deputy mayors), essentially non-transparent and non-participatory in the process of appointing acting regional heads, are very inadequate because they only involve the governor, the home minister and the President.

Likewise, the authority of the acting regional head is still limited, even though he has been managing the region for a long time. Regarding matters related to supervision, sanctions and orientation training for regional heads, there are no regulations at all. Therefore, it would be better if, before the inauguration of the next batch of regional heads, the government made a new PP first. If the PP has not been finalized and there is a vacant regional head position, the regional secretary can be appointed as the acting regional head.

KOMPAS/NINA SUSILO

Djohermansyah Djohan

Djohermansyah Djohan, Professor at IPDN, Director General of Regional Autonomy 2010-2014 and Acting Governor of Riau 2013-2014

This article was translated by Kurniawan Siswo.