Presidential Democracy and Regional Elections
Article 7 of the 1945 Constitution states that the president is elected directly by the people. This rule is one of the prerequisites for a presidential democracy system, a.k.a presidentialism.
Meanwhile, a prerequisite for parliamentary democracy (parliamentarism), the head of government is elected by members of parliament, not directly by the people (Linz, 1990).
The question then "Is the indirect election of regional heads which is recently stated by Prabowo Subianto constitutionally accepted in presidentialism?"
The Constitutionality of Direct Elections
Our constitution does not explicitly state that the regional head elections (pilkada) are carried out directly or indirectly. It only explicitly states that regional heads are elected "democratically", which can be interpreted as either being elected directly or indirectly.
Some political elites tend to interpret "democratically" as "indirectly", for certain reasons. Because direct elections are considered expensive, divisive, or damaging the nation's morals.
Apart from these claims, we must examine the pattern of empirical relationship between presidentialism and indirect forms of regional elections in this world with adequate empirical evidence.
According to the author's observations from various literature and online data, there have only been 73 countries with "perfect" and "imperfect" democratic systems (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2022). The rest are authoritarianism. As for the other 73 countries, 43 of them adopt with parliamentarism, while 17 adopt pure presidentialism, followed by 13 semi-presidentialism or mixed countries.
For the 17 pure presidentialisms, 53% of their governors are directly elected by the people, and 82% of their regents or mayors are also directly elected by the people. In other words, there is a general pattern showed in the global presidentialism that regional heads are directly elected by the people.
In contrast, out of 43 parliamentarism countries, 53% of their governors are elected indirectly, while only 48% of their regents or mayors are elected indirectly by the people.
To put it simply, there is no consistent pattern in parliamentarism that this system makes regional heads elected indirectly which is a basic characteristic of parliamentarism. There are quite a lot or even the majority of second-level regional heads in parliamentary democracies whose regional heads are elected directly.
One classic example of this deviation is the city of London. Its mayor is elected directly by the people. It is said to be classic because it deviates from the British parliamentary system which is a classic model of parliamentarism in the history of world politics.
We also need to pay special attention to the political systems, which are geographically and culturally closer to Indonesia, like South Korea and Taiwan in discussing these regional elections because both are the best presidential democractic country in Asia. Other countries that are not democratic, or they are not perfect yet as democratic country is like Indonesia and its neighbour, the Philippines.
South Korea and Taiwan are the best example for us, because they adopt the most democratic presidential system in Asia with the higher level of public welfare in the top group of prosperous countries in the world. Because people chose the way of democracy, it is very important for democratic country to meet their expectation in creating welfare.
Prosperous countries like China or Singapore are excluded in this example because they are not democratic country, but rather they gain prosperity through authoritarianism. If it was possible to be prosperous democratically as proven well by South Korea and Taiwan, why would we have to choose the path of China, Singapore, or even the New Order?. The heads of state of South Korea and Taiwan are directly elected by the people, as are their regional heads, with slight differences for the provincial level in Taiwan.
The Value of Power in the Hands of The People
Why most of the time that regional heads in a pure presidential system are directly elected?. Why are second-level regional heads in a parliamentary system also are usually directly elected rather than elected by the members of the second-level regional parliament (equivalent to the Regional House of Representatives)?.
Historically, the parliamentary system is our predecessor. Parliamentary democracy has its historical roots in the monarchy system. England and many Western European countries are models of absolute monarchies that later evolved into constitutional monarchies.
Despite recognizing the kingdom system, human civilization increasingly perceives democracy as more valuable which is popularly interpreted as power in the hands of the people.
Because of that, even though it adopts a parliamentary system where the parliament should determine the central and regional political structures, parliamentary system accommodates the value of democracy which is manifested in the direct election of regional heads by the people. This means direct election of the head of the state and regional heads is nothing more than just an advanced political evolutions of the indirect elections.
In addition, history shows that many new countries emerged through a revolutionary process where the previous kingdom ended after losing a war or a revolution (e.g: France, USA, Indonesia, and etc.). This revolution ended the kingdom system. Due to that reason, the republic that was established from the revolution needs a head of state as a replacement of the king
The head of state and regional heads must have strong legitimacy. In a democracy, being directly elected is the strongest legitimacy. Therefore, the head of state cannot be dismissed by anyone except by the people themselves through a constitutional mechanism. Another prerequisite for presidentialism is not being able to be politically removed by the House of Representatives.
The people's aspiration for regional heads is comparable to the mandate of the president. Regional heads emerged due to the influence of local kings which had been ended after the independence of Indonesia, except for the kingdom of Yogyakarta. Regional heads, therefore, became like local kings. They must have strong legitimacy. The king's legitimacy has its own legacy and heredity, while the regional head's main legitimacy has the mandate from the people as a result of direct election.
Regional head, with his people's mandate, are in power for a limited period. However, he cannot be politically overthrown by the Regional House of Representatives. This is a true implementation of presidentialism at the regional level.
Political Stability
Regional heads that is based on presidential democracy will most likely to create a stable regional government compared to regional heads based on parliamentary democracy. Just as the House of Representatives, the Regional House of Representatives simply cannot overthrow regional heads politically unless they violate the constitution or law. This is clearly an advantage of regional heads based on direct elections as a logical derivative of the presidential democracy that we adhere to.
Unfortunately, parliamentary democracy has failed to be implemented in our country. In the 1950s, changes in government took place almost every year due to clashing coalitions within our parliament, making the government's policies unstable due to its unfinished programs. The expected socio-economic welfare was difficult to achieve. Due to various complexity, our parliamentary democracy was finally watered down by Soekarno in 1959.
Reflecting on the historical experience of the 1950s, I believe that if the regional government had elected by the Regional House of Representatives rather than elected directly by the people, the regional head would have been responsible to those who elected him.
Regional head's electability depends on the members of the each party and Regional House of Representatives. Since there is no party with an absolute majority in the Regional House of Representatives, it can be predicted that the coalition in the Regional House of Representatives will easily change like the parliament in the 1950s. After that, they just have to replace him with another person as they please.
For now atleast, such an act of overthrowing never been happened since the regional head is still elected by the people. The regional head cannot be dismissed by the Regional House of Representatives as regulated by the constitution and law.
The stability of our presidential democracy in the last two decades proofs that presidentialism based on direct elections for the head of state/government is able to create political stability. If only we still had adhered to the parliamentarism way of the People's Consultative Assembly where the president is elected by its members, I strongly suspect that we would never have achieved that stability in the present.
The only way that Soeharto's authoritarian regime was able to stood for almost four decades, was due to the amount of political power given to the People's Consultative Assembly. In fact, it was not the People's Consultative Assembly that determined the stability alone, but rather reinforced by his Armed Forces.
It would have had been a different story if the People's Consultative Assembly had been the result of democracy. It is estimated that the People's Consultative Assembly would not be able to create that same stability. The result of the 1999 democratic election which led to the removal of the Fourth President, Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur), is simply more than just a product of the democratic policy made by the People's Consultative Assembly.
This kind of instability would likely happen once again in national level if we returned to democracy dictated by the People's Consultative Assembly. The same goes to the regional level if its heads were elected by the Regional House of Representatives as the result of democratic elections. If they had been silenced the people's voice to elect the head of state and government in the national and/or regional level, I am afraid that not only democracy, but also Indonesia would have ended. Thus, leading to the loss of political stability in our heterogeneous society, which has so far been maintained through presidential democracy.
A More Constitutional Way
Based on empircal global evidence and the history of Indonesian democracy, direct regional elections are clearly more constitutional since its able to capture the spirit of the people's reform and the intention of "democratically elected" for regional heads as stated in the constitution.
If we throw back, direct regional elections began on 2005 after the implementation of direct presidential elections a year before on 2004 in accordance with the 1999 post-democratic election regional government law. The Constitutional Court has defined regional elections as being within the election regime, and one of the principles of elections (Article 2 of Law No. 7/2017) is that the people vote directly without intermediaries as is done in electing the president, House of Representatives, Regional Representative Council, and Regional House of Representatives.
Based on various comparative global, historical, and constitutional considerations, strengthening direct regional elections remains the best choice for Indonesia.
This article is written by Saiful Mujani, Professor of Political Science at UIN Jakarta, and published in the Kompas opinion column on January 30, 2025.