Proceedings of the 17th International Academic Conference, Vienna

INDONESIA STILL WANT TO VOTE

EDBERT GANI, PRATICKO GENIO, ARIEF NUGRAHA

Abstract:

Indonesia is a country that puts the elections as fundamental to reflect the country's democracy. This is shown by the regulation of elections in the state constitution (UUD 1945) which is the basic law of the state. In Suharto's authoritarian regime (called New Order), Indonesia also held regular elections. The existence of regular elections is used as a tool in countries such as Indonesia to show the world that the democratic system has existed in this country. Procedurally democratic elections marked by still survive up until the time of the current reform. But if we want to see democracy substantially, then there needs to be more in-depth research about it In 2004, Indonesia recorded an achievement in terms of democratization. In that time, Indonesia for the first time can select the president and vice president directly. This achievement was followed by doing direct local elections. Quite revolutionary change occurs only six years since the reform carried out Suharto's authoritarian regime. At the end of 2014 there were intense debates in Indonesia about local elections. Indonesia is a country that is very much holding elections because people have to choose from the level of the central government, provincial, city and county up. During this time to select the area of the district and provincial level conducted through direct elections. This began in 2004 with the issuance of Law (UU) No. 32 of 2004 which regulates the election of Regional Head directly. In 2014, the problem arises because the House intends to revise that law. This is done by issuing a bill on local elections that convert directly to indirectly elections again. Local elections at the provincial level are returned to the mechanism covered by parliament while the district level fixed by direct election Outside of the debate about the interests of the relevant political actors with the election system, there are other important things that need to be answered in this problem. When we look to other democratic countries in the world, actually local elections do not have to be directly. The United States is an example where the local elections conducted indirectly. The main question of our paper is how importance a direct local elections with the quality of democracy in a country such as Indonesia. Whether significant or does not.

Keywords: Local elections, democracy, Indonesia

DOI: 10.20472/IAC.2015.017.028

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