Regional Head ELECTIONS the second round of aliases held throughout 2010 this reveals an interesting reality.
First, the candidates' complaints about the increasingly expensive costs that must be incurred to win elections.
A number of people claimed to be nominated until the winner of the election regent / mayor requires no less than Rp 5 billion rupiah. While in the governor's election, a candidate must prepare tens of billions of money.
This later became one of the reasons the direct elections began to be questioned.
According to the story of a consultant friend who won the election, the daughter of the former Regent of Kutai Kertanegara spent around Rp 70 billion to pay for the services of political image polishing consultants.
Second, the political reality shows that the regional heads who are still in office want to run again, despite having served two terms. They still want to be in the seat of power of the regional head, although slightly demoted as deputy head of the region. Or if not so, for those who have served two terms, the next stick of power istafet continued by his wife or children.
The mayor of Surabaya, who has served twice, is willing to step down as Deputy Mayor of Surabaya. The Regent of Tuban will presumably also follow in the footsteps of the Mayor of Surabaya, demoted to Deputy Regent of Tuban.
The position of Regent of Kutai Kertanegara moved from father to daughter. The seat of The Regent of Kendal switched from husband to wife, as did the chair of The Regent of Bantul and Indramayu switched from husband to wife.
The most fun election kediri district, old wife and young wife fight in the election for the seat of regent stay the husband.
Third, more and more regional heads are entangled in "hotel prodeo" aka prison due to corruption cases that buy him. The most menohok sense of justice is the case of Boven Digul District. The regent who is still in office has been designated as a suspect in a corruption case and has even been detained. But in turn won this year's election.
Some of those realities, spending big to win elections, "addiction to power" constantly, and regional heads being convicted of corruption cases, are increasingly being seen in the eyes of the people.
I think more and more people are convinced that the political cost that a candidate should spend in an election is huge.
It doesn't even make sense to people. People also know, in this era of public information transparency, how much a regent, mayor, governor, and his representatives pay. Economically between political capital in elections and salaries earned in a single term of office will not reach break event point, in Javanese "ora cucuk".
That alone is still overshadowed by the risk of entering bui due to indications of corruption cases.
But the layman also asked in a strange tone, "Why is it all at stake, and more and more are interested in occupying the position of head of the region? Even those who have been in power within the maximum limit still want to add more periods?"
That's the mystery of power. When we open the dictionary, the mystery word in English has several meanings. Mystery has the meaning of gaiban, mystery, a book full of sensations and shrouded in a veil of secrets. In other forms, mysterious means strange, strange, magical, and enigmatic. The word mystery and mysterious is close to the word mystic which means adherents of spiritual science.
It is appropriate in the context of Indonesian politics, someone who wants to approach or maintain the diligent power of grave pilgrimage, or use the services of "political shaman" to accompany during the vortex of power. That's more because power is mystical and mysterious, nganeh-nganehi.
In political theory, power is often interpreted as the ability of a person to influence the other party to do or not do something as he wants. In this context, it can be imagined how a person in power can do anything he wants with all his instruments and resources.
A regional head of the authority appoints who becomes the head of what service. Unfortunately in politics there is a belief "there is no free lunch in politics", to get a position is not free aka there is a cost. This is perhaps one of the sources of "income" beyond the salary of a regional head. That's just one example, there are many other examples if passed on.
Up here, that's apparently the mystery of power. To the naked eye, that reality leads us to open the veil of the mystery of power, namely the enactment of the political law of "money gets to power and than gets more money" (MPM), money to gain power and when in power to earn more money.
A fellow politician likened the addiction to power to a cigarette addiction, it is certainly a risk that will be borne, but still tempting.
Is that power addiction worth allowing? Although the mystery of power is increasingly revealed, let the people answer it.
Wallahu 'Alam Bishshawab.
HASYIM ASY'ARI
*The writer is a lecturer of The Faculty of Law Undip and a former member of KPU Jateng.
**This article was previously published in Suara Merdeka Daily, Monday, October 18, 2010.
