Single Candidates Believed to Increase in 2024 Regional Elections

JAKARTA – Member of the Advisory Board of the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) Titi Anggraini believes that the number of single candidates will increase in the 2024 Simultaneous Regional Elections. Titi believes that the 2024 Regional Elections will strengthen the hegemony of single candidates in a number of regions.

“The 2024 regional elections will strengthen the hegemony of single candidates. In fact, it is believed that single candidates will increase,” said Titi in a webinar entitled Questioning the Phenomenon of Single Candidates in the 2024 Simultaneous Regional Elections held by The Constitutional Democracy Initiative (CONSID), Sunday (4/8/2024).

This is based on Titi’s assessment that a single candidate promises victory. “In fact, 98% of single candidates win. This is what makes it better to fight with a party than to fight with the people. This pragmatism ultimately makes parties unwilling to gamble with the people’s votes,” he said.

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On the other hand, said Titi, the dominance of centralization of nominations and full authority on the party’s general chairman to make decisions. This is seen when the nomination process for a figure is decided by the party’s general chairman.

“Everything is determined by the DPP for access to nominations for regional elections,” he said.

Then, Titi said, there were efforts to consolidate the presidential nomination in the 2024 Pilkada, one of which was through the Advanced Indonesia Coalition (KIM). According to her, the existence of KIM has the potential to produce a single candidate.

“For example, in Banten, East Kalimantan, Jambi at the provincial level. The following is also in the regions, for example, the potential is in North Labuhan Batu, Lingga, Maros, Passer, Sumenep. If at the city level, it is in Batam. This is some of the data that has emerged. It could be that the deadlock in the nomination before the candidate registration will also add to the list of regions with single candidates,” said Titi.

Finally, said Titi, the condition of political parties that have not fully recovered in terms of internal solidity, finances, and victory after the 2024 simultaneous elections has made parties more pragmatic “And more oriented, let’s just share the stalls, rather than then bleeding more money and from the institutional work side, but also from the survey analysis side, for example,” he concluded.

(rca)