KPU Now Requires Elected Legislative Candidates to Resign If They Run in the 2024 Regional Elections

The General Election Commission (KPU) emphasized that elected candidates for members of the DPR, DPD, or DPRD at the provincial or district/city level who will run for the 2024 regional elections are required to resign from their positions. The chairman of the KPU, Hasyim Asy’ari, said that this rule applies to both members who have served and those who have not yet been appointed.

“For selected candidates who have not yet been appointed, they must also be willing to resign from the status of elected candidates as members of the DPR, DPD, or DPRD. “This resignation document must be submitted no later than five days after the KPU determines the candidate pair,” said Hasyim in a joint working meeting with Commission II of the DPR at the parliament complex in Jakarta (15/5).

Hasyim further explained that selected candidates who have not yet been appointed must also submit documents in the form of a letter of application for resignation as an elected member of the DPR, DPD, or DPRD, a receipt from the authorized official for the submission of the resignation application letter, as well as a statement that the resignation application is being processed by the authorized official.

Registration of candidates for the 2024 Pilkada will be carried out from August 27 to 29, 2024. Then administrative research and verification will be carried out from August 27 to September 21, 2024, and the determination of the candidate pairs participating in the Pilkada is scheduled for September 22, 2024. Meanwhile, the inauguration of the elected DPR and DPD members is scheduled for October 1, 2024.

“Therefore, once appointed as a candidate for regional elections on September 22, 2024, the selected candidate must immediately submit a letter of resignation. “This is to ensure the path that will be taken, whether as a candidate for regional head or as a member of the DPR or DPD,” said Hasyim.

Previously, Hasyim had revealed that legislative candidates elected in the 2024 legislative elections did not have to resign if they wanted to run in the 2024 regional elections. He argued that the elected legislative candidates had not officially become members of the legislature because they had not yet been appointed. In February 2024, the Constitutional Court (MK), when rejecting the lawsuit in case Number 12/PUU-XXII/2024 in its legal considerations, said that the KPU should require elected legislative candidates to resign if they run for regional head. []