Law No. 1 of 2015 in conjunction with Law No. 8 of 2015 established contribution limits of IDR 50 million for individual donors and IDR 500 million for corporate donors. However, these laws do not impose any limits on contributions made by candidate pairs or by the political parties or coalitions that nominate and support them.
This is where the General Elections Commission (KPU) should take a bold policy initiative by introducing limits on contributions from candidate pairs and supporting political parties. One possible approach is to establish a maximum percentage that each may contribute relative to the total campaign income or expenditure. In this regard, Perludem recommends that candidate pairs and supporting political parties or party coalitions each be allowed to contribute no more than 20 percent of the total campaign budget. Contributions from individual donors and private business entities should remain the majority source of campaign funding (60 percent), as they demonstrate public support for the candidate pair.
This policy brief on regional election campaign finance examines not only campaign revenues and expenditures but also reporting requirements. The main output of the study is a Draft KPU Regulation (PKPU) on Campaign Contributions and Expenditures in Regional Elections. To complement this draft, the study also includes a Draft KPU Regulation on Campaign Finance. These two draft regulations are intended to serve as recommendations and inputs for the KPU in developing regulations governing election campaigns and campaign finance.
