Regional elections recently become the trending topic of several academic discussions. Even, the use of term ‘regional elections’ (pemilihan kepala daerah) and ‘regional general elections’ (pemilihan umum kepala daerah) is still being debated. The term ‘regional elections’ indicated the election of regional head is authorized to regional government, while the term ‘regional general election’ tend to be a part of general election. From the perspective of election host, regional elections are included on general election because it hosted by General Election Commission. Thus the question is, who is authorized to adjudicate regional election dispute?

The statements was delivered by Chief Justice Arief Hidayat as keynote speaker at a national seminar entitled “Guarding People’s Sovereignty in Regional Election Dispute Resolution,” which held on Wednesday (13/5) for celebrating 33th Dies Natalis of Universitas Darul Ulum Islamic Center Sudirman (UNDARIS), Semarang.

Arief explained, the Constitutional Court once adjudicated that regional election dispute resolution wasn’t the Court authority because regional elections included on the authority of regional government. However, Arief added, the Constitutional Court was still authorized to handle regional election dispute if there was no particular institution handling the dispute. “As long as there is no particular institution handling regional election dispute, the Constitutional Court still authorized to handle the dispute. If it seen from its harm, it is actually only the Constitutional Court which considered appropriate to resolve these issues,” he added.

Moreover, Arief said the image of elections was very alarming, particularly regional elections. Money politics, conflicts among candidates, cheating, and state facilities abuse were often occurred in regional election. “There is an idea of ending direct regional elections because of its ineffective and inefficiency. In my opinion, indirect elections conducted by the Regional Representative Council (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah –DPRD) aren’t automatically erased the practice of transactional politics and money politics. In fact, this mechanism will bring the benefit to regional elites because it create new oligarchy authority which centered in the DPRD,” said him.  

Low Trust

Arief asserted, Indonesia nowadays suffered from nation disorientation. It was difficult to live nation living without vision and mission as well as mutual trust. “Indonesia nowadays is undergoing unnecessary commotion. There are different visions between the founding fathers and recent people. Recent people live on low trust society. In fact, mutual trust is the key of nation unity,” said Arief.

Based on such condition, Arief said that every nation components were actually had duties to participate in nation building. The duty was conducted in line with each position in order to grow constitutional awareness culture.

“We already build a good law structure, including on regional elections. The problem is, we forget to build good law culture, which is the perception that could build law culture such as the attitude of ready to win or lose,” said Arief. “Law culture should support to build a good election system. We should obey the rule. Good law enforcement should be manifested from good law culture. Candidates who run in election should ready to win or lose, not just greedy to win,” he added.  

In the end of his speech, Arief appealed to the public to grow mutual trust and prioritize nation interest. “Nation objectives, nation vision and mission is the matter unite us, any other differences should be removed. We must learn on how the founding fathers taught us to prioritize nation interest than practical interest. Indonesia which recently suffered from disorientation and distrust should be revitalized. We should conduct improvement in the future, hopefully the nation could be restored to conduct democracy in the best possible way,” said he when closing his speech. (Dedy R. Ramly/Prasetyo Adi N)