Party Elites and Centralized Selection of Regional Head Candidates

Muhammad Ikhsan, Subhilhar, Heri Kusmanto

and Indra Kesuma Nasution

University of Sumatera Utara, Indonesia

Keywords: Candidacy, Regional Head, Political Elite, Political Parties, Mayor Election.

Abstract: This paper is derived from an ongoing dissertation research, this research wants to capture the process of

selecting candidates/candidacy for regional heads in the 2020 Medan city mayor elections. There are strong

indications that in the process of candidacy of regional head candidates by political parties, the process was

undemocratic and full of elite interests, rather than the volition of grassroots party cadres and constituent

communities. The dynamics of discord within the party structure and the dismissal of cadres are signs of a

mismatch between the voices of the bottom line and the elite of political parties in deciding which candidates

will be nominated. UU no. 2 of 2011 concerning Political Parties, has mandated political parties that the

recruitment of candidates for regional heads and their representatives must be carried out in a democratic and

open manner. In this article, the author wants to elaborate on the phenomenon of the centrality of the

candidacy of regional head candidates in Indonesia, which is associated with the intervention of political elites

and oligarchs in political parties and their impact on the development of local democracy.

1 BACKGROUND

Ideally, political parties are to mobilize the people,

represent certain interests, and provide a way of

compromise for conflicting opinions. The role of

political parties as a means of recruitment is to select

prepared cadres, and to strive for the placement of

qualified, possess, and experienced cadres and to get

support from the community in strategic political

positions (Farisi and Haryadi 2017).

Political parties that are centralized and

unresponsive to aspirations from below, and oligarchs

that control or dominate political parties and the

practice of clientelism in getting votes in elections,

have saturated Indonesia's electoral democracy

(Aspinall, Edward & Berenschot 2019).

In many parties, the process of determining

candidates who will take part in the elections is

carried out in a very closed manner, not only to the

wider community but also to party administrators at

the regional level. The Central Executive Board of

political parties (DPP) in Indonesia has full authority

to determine who is approved to be carried by his

party in each pilkada. This determination may involve

or be known to the regional administrators, but also

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1370-7876

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2699-3405

without involving or even notifying the regional

administrators if there is a tendency for differences in

interests between the central and regional

administrators to appear (Purwaningsih, Eka, and

Widodo n.d.).

If we examine the regulations governing political

parties, namely Law no. 2 of 2011 concerning

Amendments to Law Number 2 of 2008 concerning

Political Parties, there is an article that mentions

political recruitment, namely Article 29 paragraph (1)

which reads:

“Partai Politik melakukan rekrutmen terhadap

warga negara Indonesia menjadi: c. bakal calon

kepala daerah dan wakil kepala daerah”.

(“Political parties recruit Indonesian citizens to

become: c. candidates for regional head and deputy

regional head”)

Then paragraph (2) of article 29 reads:

“rekrutmen sebagaimana yang dimaksud pada ayat

(1) huruf c dilakukan secara demokratis dan terbuka

sesuai dengan AD dan ART serta peraturan

perundang-undangan.”

("Recruitment as referred to in paragraph (1) letter c

is carried out in a democratic and open manner in

Ikhsan, M., Subhilhar, ., Kusmanto, H. and Nasution, I.

Party Elites and Centralized Selection of Regional Head Candidates.

DOI: 10.5220/0011823500003460

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Social and Political Development (ICOSOP 2022) - Human Security and Agile Government, pages 401-404

ISBN: 978-989-758-618-7; ISSN: 2975-8300

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

401

accordance with the AD and ART and the laws and

regulations.")

In the 2020 Medan mayor election some time ago,

there were dynamics in a number of political parties

in terms of determining who their party would carry

as a candidate for mayor of Medan. PDIP and

Gerindra are two political parties that have 10 seats in

the city parliament, which were thus able to nominate

their own regional head candidate, but both ended up

in a coalition.

PDIP and Gerindra seem to prioritize the order

from the central elite over the aspirations of

grassroots party administrators, this can be seen at

least from the incumbent mayoral candidate Akhyar

Nasution who is a cadre and administrator of the

North Sumatra PDIP who did not receive a

recommendation and was not promoted by his own

party. PDIP then issued a new membership card for

Bobby Nasution (president Jokowi’s son in law) and

accepted Bobby's registration as a candidate for

mayor of Medan, even though the PDIP's originally

scheduled registration time had closed.

This phenomenon caused turmoil in the

management of the North Sumatra and Medan PDIP,

especially at the sub-district level. Akhyar Nasution,

who was a PDIP cadre from the start, has loyalists at

the grassroots level who have been PDIP

administrators for a long time. These lower-level

administrators reject the policy of the PDIP DPP

which prefers Bobby, who is not a cadre, to Akhyar

Nasution, who is incumbent and has a clear career and

regeneration in PDIP (Arfah 2020).

Not only at the management level, PDIP cadres

and longtime loyalists also issued a firm statement

rejecting the DPP's decision to choose Bobby and are

ready to accept sanctions. The firm stance of the PDI-

P cadres is a manifestation of their disappointment

with the unilateral decision of the DPP, which does

not carry cadres from internal parties whose loyalty

and militancy have been tested (Ilham 2020).

This elitist DPP decision was followed by the

DPD (provincial) and DPC (City) administrators. The

elite's interests were clearly more accommodated than

the voices of grassroots administrators and cadres,

this indication can be seen from the removal of sub-

district administrators who did not support the DPP's

decision to nominate Bobby Nasution in Medan

election. Apart from being removed, the four PAC

(sub-district) heads were also recommended to be

fired from membership in PDIP. The four PAC

leaders came from PAC PDIP in the Medan Area,

Medan Perjuangan, Medan Johor, and Medan

Selayang (Molana 2020).

Akhyar Nasution himself after not getting the

ticket from the PDIP then approached the Democratic

Party and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS). As a

result, the two parties officially endorsed Akhyar

after he decided to leave the PDI-P and join the

Democrats.

2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The method used in this study is a qualitative research

method, which is a method that describes a problem

with an emphasis on depth of data or analysis.

Qualitative research is an investigative process in

which researchers gradually try to understand social

phenomena by differentiating, imitating, comparing,

cataloging and classifying objects of study (Creswell,

2009).

The data obtained were then analyzed using

descriptive-analytical method. With the descriptive

method, attention is focused on phenomena that are

actual at the time the research is being conducted,

which shows the facts about the problem being

studied, as well as accurate and rational interpretation

of data or information.

Researchers in collecting data use several data

collection techniques, one of which is; Library

research, namely by studying and collecting data

through relevant literature and reading sources that

support research. This study uses internet journals

and books that are in accordance with the studies in

this study.

This study takes the research locus on the 2020

mayor elections in Medan, the main focus is on the

process of selecting regional heads of regional heads

in political parties. The researcher will take 2 (two)

parties that carry Bobby Nasution's regional heads,

namely PDIP and Gerindra Party as objects of

research to determine the mechanism and dynamics

of the regional regional head selection process in

these political parties.

3 RESULT & DISCUSSION

3.1 Party Elitism & Inequality Politic

Political parties often choose to nominate candidates

from outside their own cadre, they tend to look for

candidates who have the resources to fund campaigns

– often also who can afford to pay the party for

candidacy and who have strong enough local

recognition and popularity to have a chance of

ICOSOP 2022 - International Conference on Social and Political Development 4

402

winning. The ideological differentiation between

political parties is also unclear, this causes

prospective voters to be unable to distinguish the

'gender' of political parties based on their policy

positions or platforms, voter preferences tend to be

more prominent figures (Aspinall and Mas’Udi 2017;

Muhtadi 2019).

Candidate selection is one of the paths for

implementing the party's internal democracy (Susan

Scarrow in Hanafi 2021). Internal party democracy

according to William P. Cross focuses on the internal

distribution of power within a political party. Hanafi

stated that one of the challenges of recruitment is the

institutionalization of personal and oligarchic

leadership of some political parties in Indonesia. The

consequence is the weak commitment of the elite or

party leaders to build and institutionalize the party's

internal democracy.

Elites are actors who control resources, occupy

key positions and relate through power networks

(Yamokoski and Dubrow, 2008). Thus, the concept

of state-of-the-art elite is more closely related to the

Weberian notion of power, understood as the ability

to carry out one's will, even against the will of others

(Weber, 2005). Power can be achieved through

material and/or symbolic resources. Consequently,

elites can be defined as those who possess these

resources (Reis and Moore, 2005) (López 2013).

Meanwhile, local political elites are those who

occupy political positions in the local sphere. The

existence and role of local political elites cannot be

separated from the influence of changes that occur in

the political system that surrounds them. Changes that

occur in the political system have an influence on the

relationship between the elite and the masses, but also

on the relationship between the elite and the state.

Many studies of elites assume that privileged

positions in key sectors of society – political,

economic, military, religious, cultural, and civil –

give one a louder and clearer political voice and, in

some cases, the power to step in to the mass base

when needed. Mills and other elite theorists argue that

the state has been hijacked by elite cabals or, at a

minimum, that policy preferences belong to elites.

Elites play a large role in the political process as both

prime movers and beneficiaries of unequal

democratic political systems. Kahn (2012) concludes

in an article in the Annual Review of Sociology on

elite sociology that, “Elites are often engines of

inequality, be it in terms of economic distribution,

political power, or access and control over institutions

(Dubrow 2014).

There is also a dynamic within the internal elite,

where each elite individual competes with each other

to maintain his position and role. Therefore, with

changes in the political system, local political elites

must be able to formulate strategies to be able to

achieve and maintain their positions and roles

(Haryanto 2009).

What happened in the Bobby Nasution case in the

2020 Medan election was a political recruitment

process that ignored the development of the party's

internal democratic institutions. The distribution of

internal power of political parties is unequally

distributed when deciding which candidate to carry in

the pilkada. The PDIP elite who are in the central

management (DPP) clearly have the full right to

decide their attitude regardless of the aspirations of

local cadres who have their own choice, namely the

old PDIP cadre Akhyar Nasution.

In a case study in Latin America, Waisman said

the Latin American political system is run with

privilege, where well-organized elites use their

position to benefit themselves at the expense of those

who are marginalized. Political elites in Latin

America, according to Waisman, are determined to

make their political careers as long and 'wet' as

possible. This desire to gain power and stay on top

can be shaped and strengthened during their ascent.

Joignant et al. found that ascension to the top of the

political elite was more likely if they first gained

experience in lower-level political organizations.

This suggests a closed elite system that operates on

pre-existing privileges and that leads to selective

political boundaries where only a few resource-rich

and organizationally skilled people can enter.

Cases that occurred in the 2020 Medan city mayor

elections, we can clearly enter according to the

Waisman category that occurred in South America

above. Bobby Nasution, who is part of the central

political elite because he is the son-in-law of

president Jokowi, was chosen as a candidate for

mayor of Medan by the same party that brought his

father-in-law as president of Indonesia. Making

Bobby Nasution the mayor of Medan when his father-

in-law was President demonstrates how a closed elite

system operates based on privilege and leads to

selective political boundaries where only a handful of

resource-rich people can enter.

4 CONCLUSIONS

Although there are many descriptive case studies on

the process of candidate recruitment within certain

parties, and the existence of formal party regulatory

documents, relatively little is known about the

structure and dynamics of the process in practice. In

Party Elites and Centralized Selection of Regional Head Candidates

403

the internal research of political parties as

organizations, the nomination process is the

dependent variable that serves to understand the

distribution of power within the party among different

organs and factions.

In most countries, parties have their own internal

processes and regulations in the candidate

recruitment process. But who decides? The following

are the key dimensions of party internal democracy:

I. Degree of Centralization, i.e. the degree to

which nominations are determined primarily by

national party leaders or delegated downwards

to regional, district or local bodies;

II. Breadth of participation, a related but distinct

issue of whether only a few selectors select

candidates or whether many people are involved

in the process, and

III. Scope of decision making, regarding whether

there is a choice of one, few, or many

competitors who want to be nominated.

This research will then be carried out within the

framework of the key dimensions above, with the

help of discussions and debates about party elites and

political inequality, the researcher hopes to capture

the role of elites at each level and how elites work to

preserve power in their hands through a candidate

selection mechanism that seems democratic.

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