Indonesia as the fourth most populous country is now leading both in the advancement of economy (economic growth have been in the range of 5-6% in the first quarter of this year) and in preserving its democracyinto a level where only few countries have achieved so far (USA, India, Poland, etc). Those two immense achievements have proliferated questions on how to keep improving or, at least, preserving the advancement of our economy's condition and to save this lively democracy from such tragedies which have backlashed the democracy itself such as the riots which were sprawling in Arab Spring Countries and Thailand, for example. That repercussion is highly possible to happen in a country where the democracy was newly born which is including Indonesia.

Amid myriad of solutions to answer those questions, one of them is to envisage the future government power’s allocation in the next presidential regime. As we have witnessed so far, the emergence of many famous yet successful local leaders (governor, major, regent, etc.) is the product of the decentralization system which has been implemented since the fall of Soeharto’s Regime (the extreme centralized regime).

Decentralization and Some of Its Benefits….
Decentralization as what has been defined by Nataly Bardy (2002) in one of her paper is the locating of decision-making rights or responsibilities away from the center, whether this be to a Crown entity from a Minister, to a department from a central agency or from a department’s head office to a regional office. According to Ridwan Kamil’s statement (read here), decentralization system has been allocating more than 70 % of central government’s functions into local governments which means, most of the decision making-process are held in the local scale rather than waiting for the central government’s decision to be passed to the local governments. This system also has lifted many famous names such as Joko Widodo, Tri Rismaharani, Ganjar Pranowo, Ridwan Kamil, and other local leaders in adapting to the local needs or preferences to formulate and ratify municipal statutes or laws which may vary from one region with another ergo the heterogeneity of preferences is one of the factors that is strongly supporting the decentralization system to be preserved. This system will also presumably preserve cultures of specific regions while empowering peoples to be actively involved in decision making process which will help the local governments to re-formulate their decisions. Decisions also, I believe, will be accelerated to be transformed into real actions (laws or statutes) since the bureaucracies are merely operating in the local (smaller) scale.

However.….
However, this seemingly flawless system does have flaws in specific circumstances. Inequalities and inequities are likely to happen since the development of a certain region is heavily depending of the quality of the local government. Inequalities might also happen in the budget allocations from one region to another which could lead to “coveting” and “disgruntled” behavior between one region with another which in worse condition may lead to clout among regions (riots). Decentralization also means a huge increment of autonomous regions or areas which if the central government failed to monitor and regulate the system wholly, could possibly lead to segregation of successfully developed regions if the country where those regions are located is in a severe condition (economically and politically speaking). Decentralization also means a proliferation of many local leaders which means the corruption-related acts might be viral and most likely to happen if the “monitoring” function of the government failed to monitor all kind of activities in all of the regions. The disequilibrium between the quantity and quality of “monitoring” function of central government with the myriad number of new local leaders which are spread in many regions across the country will trigger the sky-rocketing number of corruption-related acts.

So here comes the big question!
So here comes the big question, should we keep it decentralized? Or will a more centralized system work more effectively rather than to spread more responsibilities to many peoples in the upcoming regime? Or maybe the combination of those two systems will be the most appropriate solution?

Fyi, The main purpose of this thread is to forge our skills in learning English which one of them is by speaking out our ideas by writing, so don’t be shy and let’s have some fun discussions!