Development of Individual Candidate Candidates for the 2024 Regional Election

The stages of holding the 2024 regional elections to elect the governor and deputy governor, regent and deputy regent, as well as mayor and deputy mayor, have begun with the stage of fulfilling the requirements for support from individual candidate pairs. In KPU Regulation (PKPU) Number 2 of 2024, the stages of fulfilling the requirements for support for individual candidate pairs will be carried out from May 5, 2024, to August 19, 2024.

Quoting data on the kpu.go.id website as of May 12, 2024, at 17.11 WIB, 242 prospective candidate pairs are making preparations to fulfill the requirements for supporting pairs of individual candidates for the 2024 regional elections. A total of 45 prospective candidate pairs had their applications accepted from the 71 prospective candidate pairs who applied, while 3 prospective candidate pairs had their applications returned.

Meanwhile, in the 2020 Simultaneous Regional Elections, there were 59 individual candidate pairs for the regent and deputy regent regional elections. And there are nine prospective pairs of candidates for the mayoral and deputy mayoral elections in the 2020 regional elections, whereas in 2020 there were no individual candidate pairs for the gubernatorial election.

In Law Number 10 of 2016 concerning Pilkada, prospective non-party or independent candidate pairs are required to submit support requirements to the General Election Commission (KPU) to register as regional head candidate pairs and compete with candidates from political parties. This support is in the form of proof of a photocopy of the KTP or a Dukcapil certificate, which will be verified by the KPU for authenticity.

The provisions for the number of support requirements for individual candidates are regulated in Article 41 of the Regional Election Law, with the amount of support varying for each province, following the number of residents who had the right to vote in the previous regional election. Provinces with a final voter list (DPT) of 2 million people must be supported by at least 10%; provinces with a DPT of 2–6 million must be supported by 8.5%; provinces with a DPT of 6–12 million must be supported by at least 7.5%; and provinces with a DCT of 12 million people, a 6.5% DCT, must be supported. This number is spread over more than 50% of the provinces.

While individual candidates can register themselves as candidates for regent-deputy regent, candidates for mayor-deputy mayor require the support of the number of DCTs in the previous regional elections. Districts and cities with a DCT of 250,000 people must be supported by at least 10%; regions with a DCT of 250,000–500,000 people must be supported by at least 8.5% DCT; districts and cities with a DCT of more than 500,000–1 million people are supported by at least 7.5% DCT; and areas with more than 1 million people must be supported by at least 6.5% DCT. This number must be spread across more than 50% of the sub-districts in the district or city. []

*For better democracy, let’s guard and ensure that the 2024 regional elections run transparently and accountably. []