January 15, 2026 | 10:00 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Executive Director of Parameter Politik Indonesia, Adi Prayitno, predicts that the issues of extending the president's term and the president being elected by the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) will emerge during the era of President Prabowo Subianto's administration. These two issues usually arise in parallel with the discourse of regional elections through the Regional House of Representatives (DPRD).
"The time to extend the president's term and the presidential election through the MPR will become a discourse. This topic always comes up close to the regional elections through the DPRD," he said during a discussion held by Pena Hari via Zoom on Thursday, January 15, 2026.
He stated that both issues will cite the same reasons as several political parties who want to revert regional elections to an indirect method. Namely, the high cost of politics and societal division due to direct elections.
The agenda of extending the president's term and the desire to return the presidential election to the People's Consultative Assembly had surfaced during the administration of Jokowi (2014-2024). At that time, some political parties supporting Jokowi's government put forward the discourse. The issue slowly faded away towards the 2024 presidential election.
In addition to these two discourses, Adi mentioned that the issue of regional elections also coincides with the discussion of the open or closed proportional electoral system for legislative members. The open proportional system allows voters to directly choose legislative candidates, while the closed proportional system only allows voters to choose political parties in the election.
Adi's prediction is based on the House of Representatives' (DPR) and the government's plan to merge several election-related laws into one package, which the DPR calls the election law package. The DPR has scheduled the discussion of the election law package in 2026, which includes merging the Election Law, the Regional Head Election Law, and the Political Party Law.
Adi stated that the plan to merge several laws is because the substance of the Election Law and the Regional Head Election Law is not much different. "The only difference is the naming of the elections and regional head elections," he said.
Currently, several political parties supporting Prabowo Subianto's administration are pushing for regional elections through the Regional House of Representatives (DPRD). The supporters of this agenda are the Golkar Party, the Gerindra Party, the Amanat Nasional Party, and the Kebangkitan Bangsa Party. Of the eight political parties in the DPR, only the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle has stated its refusal of indirect regional elections.
The Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem), Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW), and several civil society coalitions oppose this agenda. They believe that the reasons citing the high political costs of direct regional elections are irrelevant and inaccurate. Seira Tamara, a staff member of the ICW Advocacy Division, stated that the high costs of regional elections are actually due to the behavior of political parties and election participants. This behavior includes the practice of political dowries to gain support from political parties and political funding.
Seira stated that regional elections through the DPRD do not solve these various problems. In fact, political dowries to gain the support of political parties are likely to be even higher in the indirect regional election system.
"Regional elections chosen by the Regional House of Representatives (DPRD) actually increase the space for political transactions that cannot be monitored by the public," said Seira.
Indonesia Survey Circle (LSI) Denny JA released on Wednesday, January 7, 2026, showed that the majority of the public rejected indirect regional elections. The public opposed the discourse of regional elections through the DPRD by 68 percent of the total survey respondents.
Director of the LSI Denny JA, Ardian Sopa, stated that 66 percent is a significant figure in public opinion surveys. "In public opinion, when it exceeds 60 percent of public approval, it means the effects are substantial," said Ardian while presenting the research results on Wednesday, January 7, 2026.
Andi Adam Faturahman contributed to this article
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