Kinship Politics Hamper Women`s Involvement in Regional Elections

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Women’s involvement in politics is currently still relying on family ties or kinship politics, which also applies at the 2018 Regional Elections. Political parties are considered to be too pragmatic and are oriented towards the aspect of electability and capital strength.

“This is why the chances to have female candidacy is still hampered by the domination of capital strength and electability dominated by men,” said Maharddhika, a researcher at the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) on Wednesday, February 21.

Maharddhika revealed that female regional head candidacy through kinship politics has increased. It was 24.39 percent during the 2015 regional elections. The number grew to 31.82 percent in the 2017 regional elections and it grew to 39 percent in 2018.

He argues that this is evidence that political parties cannot supply adequate female candidates since parties tend to not have an inclusive and open recruitment mechanism.

Other than that, according to Maharddhika, there are three dominant backgrounds of female candidates that run for regional elections, such as the party cadres, former legislative member, and an incumbent. “Political regeneration that is intended to prepare female candidates with great quality and electability has not been running well,” he said.

Based on records from infopemilu.kpu.go.id obtained on Wednesday, February 21, the 2018 regional elections will be participated by 8.85 percent women candidates. There are a total of 101 female candidates from 1,140 candidates that have registered.

Riani Sanusi Putri