Comment On Alteration of Region Government Election System

This week the topic of region government election laws planning has been a debatable topic of the society. There are two distinct opinions among representative board members in accordance with this topic. First opinion is proponent of the region government election still done by people of the region. While second opinion wants to alter the election system so representative board has rights to elect the region government as well as before reformation era. So regarding to this topic, which election system is more suitable for our nation? The answer is NONE.

The cost to organize election is very expensive, either election of President or region government such as Gubernur and Bupati. The cost what I mean in this term refer to the cost of organizing the election itself which is spent by government and the cost which is spent by prospective President or prospective Gubernur and Bupati for campaign. Nevertheless for prospective President or Gubernur and Bupati there is also additional cost called "money politic" in which this cost cannot be classified as official cost. Due to large spending in campaign and "money politic", cause corruption rate in Indonesia is still high.

What is the direct advantages impact for people of the region by shifting election of region government to representative board? I think that there is no direct advantages impact for people generally. It only emerges potential of shifting money politic from common people to members of the representative board. Is there anything else? Probably, cost of government to organize election can be reduced. So government can save their spending, and hopefully that money which is initially for organizing direct election can be used for financing education improvement, public health, and other economy sectors which have direct impacts for people wealth.

I am not convinced that shifting region government election can decrease the amount of corruption in Indonesia. I was more attracted with the “drama” which happened in representative board when they discussed about this. In my opinion, at the time when they wanted to decide the decision would be taken by using voting system was funny. Although I was sure what they were fight for something important. Yet in my opinion, it is more important to discuss about the sentence for the government and public servants corruption. As we know, the amount of region government convicted corruption rose in past ten years. Probably, this is evidence that KPK has been effectively working; so many region government and public servants were arrested due to corruption.

I suggest to representative board, because the alteration of region government election system has been officially agreed, to do fit and proper test before someone officially becoming candidate of Gubernur or Bupati. To governance a region, someone must have high knowledge in political, economy, and social. Hence representative board should do a test, and review the working experience and achievement before someone officially becoming candidate of Gubernur or Bupati. I also challenge to representative board to improve the punishment system for Gubernur, Bupati, public servants, and also representative board members who have convicted corruption to be imposed lifetime sentence or death sentence.

To sum up, by changing election system I hope that government can save their spending for organizing region government election and allocate more spending for financing public sectors improvement. I also hope this method will generate good leader to lead a region therefore economy and wealth of people in the region particularly can increase. I also hope, this alteration is not a method for representative board members to enrich themselves. Hopefully Indonesia will be better than years ago.