Local Participation in Semarang Municipal Governor Election System

-
New governor election system, in which local people participate directly into the election, has made a significant change in local political arena of Indonesia. This is due to the fact that such decentralized electoral system has shifted the overwhelming authorities of the Local House of Representatives to a larger, local-wide public space. Such change was a logical consequence of the promulgation of the Act No. 32/2004 on local government in a multi-party political form. It is logical that problems related to direct local leader election eventually involve direct political activities of the people in playing their role as voters. It is particularly important to know the voters’ attitudes in order to understand their will towards the local leadership preference. Voters’ attitudes can determine responses of the candidates to winning or losing their elections. According to this brief explanation, this study attempted to find out factors that affected the loss of Sukawi-Sudharto in the Central Java Governor Election 2008 for Salatiga municipal ballots.

This study used an analytical descriptive approach in order to find out physical progress and frequence of particular social phenomenon that occurred during the election and to give in depth description of such phenomenon. To this end, the study applied such data collection techniques as interview, questioner dissemination, and observation.

The study identified factors that affected the loss of Sukawi-Sudharto in the Central Java Governor Election 2008 in Salatiga Municipality. Firstly, economic background was believed to affect the failure. It was not surprisingly because economic factor had become a key factor to the successful candidates. In other words, economic solutions were among prominent needs of most voters. Secondly, there were conflicting ideas between individuals in the candicacy success team due to disintegrated interests. Thirdly, the candidate duet, especially Sukawi, was suspected to corrupt the Local Expenditure Income Budget during his mayoral administration. The corruption case was widely publicized and, in turn, corrupting the duet’s confidence in competing the race for the Central Java Governor Election held on June 22th, 2008.

The above factors were identified in Salatiga Municipality, where Sukawi-Sudharto only finished third on the voting rank. The Salatiga electoral ballots resulted the following final counts: Bibit Waluyo-Rustriningsih (14,620 votes or 28.08%), Bambang Sadono-HM Adnan (18,305 or 22.11%), Sukawi-Sudharto (14,620 votes or 17.66%), Agus Soeyetno-Abdul Kholiq Arif (13,635 votes or 16.47%), HM Tamzil-Rozaq Rais (12,972 votes or 15.67%).

The study recommended that in order to gain success in the election, candidates need to put their electoral orientation of political commitment and policy on supreme priority since the people as their constituents directly give their aspiration in a common, independent, classified, honest, and fair manners toward peaceful democratization process

Popular posts from this blog

Bureaucratic Issues in Indonesia

-
Reform experienced by Indonesia in 1998 has led to major change nationwide. The change took place as far as governmental administration process. Bureaucracy as part of the government’s job description, was also affected by the reform. The movement towards change required bureaucracy to be more neutral, transparent, responsive, and accountable, politically. Such demand has pushed the bureaucrats to create a new frame and characteristic building in answering their responsibility to fulfill the needs of people as their constituents. In practice, Indonesian bureaucracy truly needed more experience to anticipate this massive change. For example, there were still many handicaps in providing public services. This situation opposed to the previously idealized dream, a government as a good servant for the citizens. Many elements of the current government administration were reluctant to fulfill the people needs voluntarily. Bureaucracy, which initially aimed to simplify administration process,
Read more

Healthcare Waste in the United States Healthcare System

-
How America will pay for healthcare is a subject on the mind of virtually every American today. As Congress determines who will pick up the tab for this important and growing expense, it is worthwhile to take a close look at the cost of healthcare itself. Are there areas where expenses can be cut without undermining the quality of care provided? How prevalent are misuse, overuse, and fraud? This paper tackles the tangled issue of healthcare waste and arrives at some interesting, and perhaps even surprising, conclusions: America’s healthcare system is, indeed, hemorrhaging billions of dollars, and the opportunities to slow the fiscal bleeding are substantial. To organize the evidence supporting claims for the magnitude of waste in the healthcare system,we first suggest a set of categories of waste. For each category, there is a simple definition, a brief description of the examples, and references that allow us to make a reasonable assessment of total annual waste for each category. Ca
Read more

A study of drinking water quality of PDAM

-
One of problems faced by community dealing with water services provided by the State-owned Water Company (PDAM) is inadequacy of the services in fulfilling household needs. Customers often complain because this limited volume of water they can use for daily activities, such the research found in a service quality analysis of drinking water provided by PDAM. The study on service quality may have its cornerstones on three main aspects: the quality, quantity, and continuity.  In case of drinking water quality at the observed location, one should relate it to the quality threshold under the Letter of Decree of the Minister of Health Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia, Kepmenkes RI, No.907/MENKES/SK/VII 2002, which has been applicable since July 28, 2002. In addition, there is also another technique of analysis to measure the water quality level by examining water debit, water pressure, and flow continuity. However, to deal with PDAM’s vision and mission, service quality analysis is lik
Read more