Home Affairs Minister Guarantees the 2017 Regional Elections Budget

Jakarta, InfoPublik - Home Affairs Minister Tjahjo Kumolo insisted that there is no problem in the budget for Regional Elections (Pilkada) 2017.

The budget for the proposed funding by the General Election Commission (KPU) is considered sufficient. "Because the condition of conflict cannot be predicted, security budget will be approved for 60 percent. The rest of the budget will be covered by the state budget,” said the Minister in his office, Thursday (6/9).

Thahjo said that for security issues of the elections, the ministry has coordinated with the Chief of Police and the Indonesian Military (TNI) Commander. So far, there has been no movement that could be predicted, but in this case, the police, assisted by TNI, is ready to secure.

Meanwhile, regarding the law, the discussion on the revision of the Regional Elections Law is completed. Now we only wait for KPU to issue a regulation based onthe higher regulation ratified yesterday. "The principle is that the government is ready for the elections. I believe KPU and Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) has prepared well,” he said.

In addition, KPU Commissioner Arief Budiman asked the Provincial and Regional KPU to announce their election budget in their respective websites. Arief believed that with election budget transparency, the Commission's credibility value will increase.

"All the election processes must be transparent. Whave been publishing the vote count results, now we have to also publish the budget,” he said. (Translator: Erik Limantara)