Jakarta, hitclubapk3 Indonesia
—
PDI Perjuangan (
PDIP
) responding to the discourse on changing the mechanism for regional head elections (pilkada) from direct election by the people, to indirect election through the DPRD.
Chairman of the Executive Election Winning Division of the PDIP DPP, Deddy Sitorus, said that up to now there has been no political agreement or official discussion in parliament regarding this proposal.
“Yes, I don’t think it’s a general agreement yet. But we’ll just have to wait for developments,” said Deddy on the sidelines of attending the opening of the PDIP East Java Regional Conference (Konferda) and Simultaneous Branch Conference (Konfercab), at the Shangri-La Hotel Surabaya, East Java, Saturday (20/12).
ADVERTISEMENT
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
Deddy emphasized that PDIP in principle wants to maintain the people’s right to elect their leaders directly.According to him, the people’s vote in elections is a fundamental political right that must not be taken away.
“In principle, we will try to protect the people’s right to directly elect their leaders, because all that remains of the people is their vote, even once every 5 years, if that is taken away, it will be too great for us,” said Deddy.
Furthermore, Deddy explained that until now the discourse on indirect regional elections was still limited to an issue thrown into the public sphere and had not yet entered official discussion in the DPR RI.
However, Deddy said that PDIP was still conducting internal studies regarding various regional head election system options.However, the aspirations developing within the party still lead to direct election by the people.
“It hasn’t been discussed in the legislative council or in the commission. So it’s just an issue, we can’t say what it will be like. We are also still conducting studies in the party, but from having to take it we heard that we still want it to be elected directly by the people,” said Deddy.
Responding to the reasons for budget efficiency which are often used as the basis for indirect regional election discourse, Deddy assessed that democracy does require costs and cannot be measured solely from the budget aspect.
“Yes, it’s from one party. Whatever it takes, there’s a cost, right? Democracy also costs money, right? So, let’s just let it proceed first,” he said.
The discourse on changing the regional head election mechanism emerged after it was revealed by several political figures, including the General Chair of the Golkar Party, Bahlil Lahadalia.
(frd/har)
