The Urgency for the Implementation of Simultaneous Regional Elections During the Covid-19 Pandemic in Indonesia in 2020

Abstract

This article discusses the urgency for simultaneous Regional Elections during the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia in 2020. The Regional Elections (Pilkada) in Indonesia will be conducted simultaneously by 270 regions, consisting of nine provincial-level regional heads, 224 district level regional heads, and 37 regional head of City level. Perppu No. 2 of 2020 concerning Regional Elections states that it will be held on December 9, 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic has hit all parts of the world and causes deaths, including in Indonesia. Regional Elections will still be held based on various considerations by stakeholders. This article examines the urgency of implementing simultaneous Regional Elections and its obstacles during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is a qualitative study and uses a literature review as the data. The results show that Covid-19 Pandemic affects political activities, which involves large numbers of people. Meanwhile, people are required not to gather/do activities in great numbers because there is a risk of spreading the virus, which ignores the government's spirit to break the chain of spreading the virus itself. However, the Regional Elections (Pilkada) ar considered to have crucial urgency and very urgent. Besides, it raises questions about whether it is due to bureaucratic factors that cannot be empty in the government structure or other political factors that require the elections to be held.

The Metanarrative of Pandemic Politics: Indonesian Regional Head Elections Cases

“…It was easy for people to come to the polling station even without being mobilized. Rashidin and Aruni [61] illustrates the danger of Covid Covid-19 spread due to the regional elections, the decline in voter participation and pessimism regarding the implementation of the regional elections have been broken [63][64] [65][66] [67].…”