Chapter I Regional Development Policy and Local-Head Elections

The process of democratization of the government system in Indonesia started in 1998.In the past ten years, Indonesia has evolved to become a democratic country from an authoritarian one.In this process, the parliament has amended the 1945 Constitution four times.Ultimately, Indonesia was able to hold its first presidential and vice-presidential direct elections in 2004 and the local-head direct elections in 2005.Who could ever predict such rapid change would happen in the Indonesian government system, particularly for those who have long witnessed the authoritarian system of the government under the New Order regime?Under such rapid process of democratization, Indonesia transformed itself from the authoritarian system to a parliamentary system, and to a presidential system starting from the central government to the regional level.Before this change of government system, Indonesia tried to apply the regional autonomy under the decentralization scheme in its initial legal framework by ratifying Law No. 22/1999 regarding Local Government, and Law No. 25/1999 concerning Fiscal Balance between the Central and the Local Government.These two legislations were effective on January 1, 2001 with the implementation regulations including Ordinance No. 25/2000 on Central and Provincial Government Authority as an Autonomous Region 1 .Under these Laws and Regulations, the full authority, that was once managed and held by the central government, was handed over to the regions, particularly to the District/Municipality governments.2 Ratnawati (2006) initiated a revision on Law No. 32/2004, saying that "the drafter of the Law (No. 32/2004) regards the regions as service-provider technical units rather than autonomous political units.This is a setback towards the establishment of a democratic, independent and prosperous regional autonomy and local-community autonomy within the corridor of the Republic of Indonesia".This view was a reaction upon the change of the term "authority" (kewenangan) in Law No. 22/1999 to the word "affairs" (urusan) in Law No. 32/2004.However, the provision of public service should be attributed to the minimum service standard or the national minimum standard service that all peoples are entitled to receive and that the government must be accountable for.