Local elections (, ) were held in Indonesia on 9 December 2020. Voters elected nine

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regent In a monarchy, a regent () is a person appointed to govern a state because the actual monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge their powers and duties, or the throne is vacant and a new monarch has not yet been dete ...

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s across the country. All the elections were held on the same day, and over 100 million people were expected to be eligible to vote.

Background

Simultaneous local elections (''Pilkada Serentak'') were first held in Indonesia in

2015 2015 was designated by the United Nations as: * International Year of Light * International Year of Soil __TOC__ Events January * January 1 – Lithuania officially adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas, and becomes ...

. The leadup to the 2020 elections saw several regulations being issued by the

General Elections Commission The General Elections Commission (, abbreviated as KPU) is the body that organises elections in Indonesia. Its responsibilities include deciding which parties can contest elections, organising the voting and announcing the results and seats won ...

(KPU) barring certain candidates from running, from adulterers to politicians who had been charged with corruption. The decision that the simultaneous local elections throughout

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

would be held amid the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

stirred some controversy in the Indonesian public.

Schedule

KPU released a schedule for the election in June 2019. Registration for the candidates would be held between 28 and 30 April 2020, with a campaign period lasting between June and September. The voting itself was initially planned for 23 September 2020. In October 2019, the

Ministry of Home Affairs An interior ministry or ministry of the interior (also called ministry of home affairs or ministry of internal affairs) is a government department that is responsible for domestic policy, public security and law enforcement. In some states, the i ...

estimated that the election would require an expenditure of Rp 15.3 trillion (around US$1.1 billion), around double the budget for the 2015 local elections. In May 2020, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, President

Joko Widodo Joko Widodo (; born 21 June 1961), often known mononymously as Jokowi, is an Indonesian politician, engineer, and businessman who served as the seventh president of Indonesia from 2014 to 2024. Previously a member of the Indonesian Democratic ...

issued a regulation postponing the election to December 2020, with further postponement being possible if the pandemic had not subsided by then. The new schedule for the elections was released in June, with the new election date set for 9 December 2020 and the campaigning period being set between 26 September and 5 December 2020. This election schedule planned by the Election Committee (KPU) and the government was opposed by several activists because by forcing a major event during a pandemic, they were breaching several Laws (''UU Kekarantinaan Kesehatan'' & ''UU Wabah Penyakit Menular'') which raising the risk of disease contagion among the people. There were more than 1500 health protocol violations during the campaigns, and 70.000 ballot officers tested reactive from COVID rapid tests and could not immediately be replaced. In December 2020 also, the government insisted on holding ''Pilkades Serentak'' (Simultaneous village leader elections) in more than 1200 villages.

Elections

Gubernatorial

Mayoral

Regency

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Indonesian local elections, 2020

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December 2020 in Indonesia 2020 local elections

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