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COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN THE 2020 MEDAN MAYORAL AND VICE-MAYORAL ELECTION (RESEARCH STUDY AT THE GENERAL ELECTION COMMISSION OF MEDAN)
MARZUKI1, TEUKU DAUDSYAH2, KHAIRIL AFANDI LUBIS3, M. FARHAN TIGOR LUBIS4
Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Universitas Islam Sumatera, Medan, Indonesia1 Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Universitas Islam Sumatera Utara, Medan, Indonesia2 Student, Faculty of Law, Universitas Islam Sumatera Utara, Medan, Indonesia3,4 marzuki.lubis@fh.uisu.ac.id; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9977-14671 daudsyah@fh.uisu.ac.id2 lubisfandil 5@gmail.com3 muhammadfarhan2468910@gmail.com4
Abstract - This research is aimed at analyzing community participation in the Me-dan's Mayoral and Vice-Mayoral election which becomes form of democracy implementation and should of course be driven by a high orientation towards politics but not by mobilization. The research is descriptive, using empirical juridical methods which are carried out through the statutory and conceptual approaches. The results show that direct election of regional head is an affirmation of Law Number 23 of 2014 concerning regional government, Law Number 7 of 2017 concerning general election, Law Number 6 of 2020 concerning stipulation of government regulation in lieu of Law Number 2 of 2020 concerning the third amendment to Law Number 1 of 2015 concerning the stipulation of government regulations in lieu of Law Number 1 of 2014 concerning the election of governors, regents and mayors to become Laws, as well as various other organic regulations. In the election two pairs of candidates took part. The total number of permanent voters is 1,635,846 and around 748,882 (45 ,97%) voted; unluckily, there are 12,915 invalid votes. Around 874,049 (54.03%) voters did not choose, thus, the national target of up to 77.5% votes are not achieved. The election itself has obstacles, for instance, voters' personal attitudes, the candidates' sale worth, and technical factors of administration. The ways to over-come the obstacles are carried out by opinion leader strategy and the ball pick-up strategy. It can be concluded that public participation can be stimulated by continuous political education, especially for first-time voters, and by so doing, public awareness can increase. Keywords: community participation, mayoral election, Medan city, commission.
INTRODUCTION
General elections are one of the means of democracy to implement people's sovereignty within the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia which is based on Pancasila and is derived into Article 1 Paragraph (2) of the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia (hereinafter referred to as the UUD 1945) which states "Sovereignty is in the hands of the people and implemented according to the Constitution".
Through general elections, as well as the regional head elections (or Pilkada), people are expected to elect leaders who are able to bring about changes towards a better life. The essence of democracy is related to the form of government from the people, by the people and for the people. In other words, "Representative government is a government deriving its power and authority from the people which power and authority are exercised through the representative freely chosen and responsible to them". Democratic government system is still considered as the best system of government1. Taking this into account, various legal institutions have been established with the intention that, by means of entrusted power carried out by officials or authorities, it is truly for the people's benefit and welfare, and not manipulated for the leaders' officials' personal interests to take advantage and enrich themselves.2 In elections, the people who have voted freely and secretly, make their choices
1 Nasuka, "Partisipasi Rakyat dan Anggota TNI dalam Pemilu: Antara Argumentasi Klasik dan Perspektif Fiqh Siyasah."
2 Kartini Kartono, "Pendidikan Politik."
on figures who are judged to be in accordance with their aspirations.3 In fact, there are many voters who do not want to be involved in the electoral process. They prefer to exercise their right not to vote or abstentions (golongan putih). This is a political reality that should be recognized in the context of democracy in Indonesia.4
Political participation is defined as the citizens' activities who act as individuals and are intended to influence decision-making by the government; participation can be individual or collective, organized or spontaneous, or sporadic, peaceful or violent, legal or illegal, effective or ineffective.5 Political participation is the voluntary will of the community, both individuals and groups, in realizing the public interest, as stated in the Verba by Saiful Mujani:6 "Political participation is a variety of activities carried out by individual citizens which are more or less directly aimed at influencing the election of government officials and/or the actions or policies they take."
The easiest and most common form of participation is through elections; people taking part in elections are called voters. According to Firmanzah, in general, voters are defined as all parties who become main objective of the candidates to influence and convince them to support and then vote for the candidate concerned. In simple terms, voters are those who are registered in the final voter list (DPT) issued by the General Election Commissions (KPU) because they have fulfilled the requirements set by law.7 Today, the constitution stipulates that general elections are held to elect members of the People's Representative Assembly, Regional Representative Council (DPD), President and Vice President, and Regional People's Representative Assembly (DPRD) every five years.8 Governors, Regents and Mayors, as regional heads of provinces, districts and cities, are respectively elected democratically.9 Democratic election is then interpreted as regional head elections are carried out directly by residents of the local administrative area who meet the requirements. Regional head elections are done in a package together with vice regional heads. Regional and vice regional heads, in question, include Governors and Vice Governors for provinces, Regents and Vice Regents for regencies and Mayors and Vice Mayors for municipalities. The regional head elections, firstly held simultaneously for the first time on December 9, 2005, were intended to increase budget efficiency, increase voters' participation and the effectiveness of the implementation of regional head elections, but by unifying the timing of the Pilkada, it turned out that community participation did not increase, for example, community participation in Medan mayor and vice mayor's election decreased.
The voters' turnout of the residents of Medan in 2010 and 2015 Pilkada was noted very low compared to the presidential and the legislative elections reflecting the public distrust towards the local level government which, ideally, has greater influence and effect on people's lives compared to government at a higher level (provincial or national), because development policies made at the local level are closer and in direct contact with people's lives, so that the process of leadership changes at the local level should receive high attention from the community, starting from the beginning of the process to being present at the voting places (TPS) to vote for the candidate being supported (see Table 1).
Table 1 : Community Participation in Legislative and Presidential Elections compared to
Medan's Head Elections
No. Types of election DPT Voters' attendance at TPS Percentage
1. 2004 legislative election 1.385.140 954.864 69 %
3 Thamrin, "Kerangka Kerja Sistem Politik Indonesia."
4 Pangi Syarwi, "Titik Balik Demokrasi: Petunjuk bagi Para Pejuang Demokrasi."
5 Samuel P. Hungtington; Joan M. Nelson, Partisipasi Politik di Negara Berkembang, Jakarta: Rineka Cipta, 1990, p. 5.
6 Saiful Mujani and Muslim, "Demokrat: Islam, Budaya Demokrasi dan Partisipasi Politik di Indonesian."
7 Efriza, "Political Explore: Sebuah Kajian Ilmu Politik."
8 Pangi Syarwi, Op.Cit.
9 Consider the Article 18 Paragraph (4) of 1945 Constitution.
2. 2004 President and Vice President election 1.506.854 1.007.074 66.9 %
3. 2005 Medan's Mayoral and Vice Mayoral election 1.450.596 792.750 54.7 %
4. 2008 North Sumatera Governor election 1.725.045 812.454 47.1 %
5. 2009 legislative election 1.843.940 872.128 47 %
6. 2009 President and Vice President election 1.915.282 1.009.963 52.7 %
7. 2010 Medan's Mayoral and Vice Mayoral election Round I 1.961.155 699.991 35.7 %
8. 2010 Medan's Mayoral and Vice Mayoral election Round II 1.961.155 750.919 38.3 %
9. 2013 North Sumatera Governor election 2.121.841 776.920 36.6 %
10. 2014 legislative election 1.767.247 915.903 51.82 %
11. 2014 President and Vice President election 1.746.831 1.021.861 58.49 %
Source: KPU Kota Medan
Elections for regional heads should be an arena or forum for local residents to manifest their will voluntarily without anyone's influence and become a form of community effort and contribution to develop Medan. Public society can directly vote and are active in attending political activities, such as campaigns, with high orientation towards politics but not with any mobilizations. In addition, people's awareness and motivation in political activities as stated earlier is very important to support the level of political participation in the election. Their enthusiastic attitude in political participation certainly has consequences for a stable political order, so this study is necessary to do.
1. Research Questions
Three objectives of the research questions can be notified, such as, what are the arrangements regarding public participation in regional head elections in Indonesia, how is community participation implemented in Medan's Mayoral and Vice-Mayoral Elections in 2020, and what factors become obstacles in increasing community participation in the election and how to seek solutions?
2. Research Method
The research was descriptive-analytical in nature, aimed at obtaining an overview of the implementation of community participation in the Medan's Mayoral and Vice-Mayoral election, as well as factors that became obstacles and solutions which overcame such obstacles. This re-search referred to empirical juridical method, being used to answer the problems on the basis of two approaches, namely, a statutory as well as a conceptual approaches. The first approach is used to examine in depth various legal instruments related to the implementation of regional head elections and the second one to understand the position of regional head elections as a form of democracy in the implementation of regional autonomy. The empirical juridical research is used since the primary data was taken from research field. However, this research also used secondary data or legal literature, covering primary, secondary, and tertiary legal materials relating to the legal institutions of Pilkada.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Arrangements Regarding Community Political Participation in Regional Head Elections in Indonesia
The Article 18 Paragraph 4 of the 1945 Constitution states "Governors, Regents and Mayors respectively as heads of provincial, district and city regional administrations are democratically elected". Currently, the meaning of democracy refers to any guarantees of the principle of people's
sovereignty in which the administrations are directly elected by the people; the elections of course require political participation of society as one of the implementations of democratic values. In Indonesia, political participation is guaranteed by the state, as contained in Article 28 of the 1945 Constitution which reads "Freedom to associate and assemble, express thoughts verbally and in writing and so on is stipulated by law". Direct Pilkada is an affirmation of Law no. 32 of 2004 jo. Law No. 23 of 2014 concerning Regional Government, as well as regarding the arrangements made clear through Government Regulation Number 6 of 2005 as amended by Government Regulation No. 49 of 2008 concerning Election, Ratification, Appointment and Dismissal of Regional Heads and Deputy Regional Heads.
Direct regional elections have been held since 2005, as mandated in Article 233 Paragraph 1 of Law No. 32 of 2004, which confirms "Regional Heads whose term of office ended in 2004 until June 2005 held direct elections for Regional Heads as referred to in this Law in June 2005". It is through this legal umbrella, direct Pilkada is then held in search of new leaders in the regional executive administration which is no longer elected by DPRD) as stipulated in Article 34 Paragraph (1) of Law No. 22 of 1999 which reads: "The filling of the positions of Regional Head and Vice Regional Head is carried out by the DPRD through simultaneous elections". People who are registered as voters should appear on the final voter list (DPT).
Several norms can be considered as the basis for organizing community participation in regional elections, including:
1. Law Number 15 of 2011 concerning Election Organizers;
2. Law Number 10 of 2016 concerning the Second Amendment to Law Number 1 of 2015 concerning the Stipulation of Government Regulations in lieu of Law Number 1 of 2014 concerning the Election of Governors, Regents and Mayors to become Law;
3. Law Number 15 of 2011 concerning General Election Organizers;
4. Law Number 7 of 2017 Concerning General Elections;
5. Law Number 6 of 2020 concerning the Stipulation of Government Regulation in lieu of Law Number 2 of 2020 concerning the Third Amendment to Law Number 1 of 2015 concerning the Stipulation of Government Regulation in Lieu of Law Number 1 of 2014 concerning the Election of Governors, Regents and Mayors Becoming Law Becoming Law;
6. Regulation of the General Election Supervisory Agency Number 13 of 2012 concerning Procedures for Oversight of General Elections;
7. Election Commission Regulation Number 8 of 2017 Concerning Socialization, Voter Education and Community Participation in the Election of Governors and Deputy Governors, Regents and Deputy Regents, and/or Mayors and Vice Mayors;
8. Election Commission Regulation Number 10 of 2018 Concerning Outreach, Voter Education, and Community Participation in General Elections.
The entire regulation regarding public participation in regional elections is intended as a form of guarantee that citizens must participate in general elections, which in turn can build an election monitoring network that involves the community in a participatory manner. Through the formulation of participatory supervision, awareness can be formed which will give rise to a better electoral sense of belonging.
Pilkada essentially aims to create a sense of community and political participations. The irony is that people's political participation often arises after mobilization carried out by political forces with a pragmatic approach through transactional practices, so that various terms appear as NPWP (Javanese nomor piro wani piro (what number, how much to pay)), dawn charge (Indonesian serangan fajar) among others.
In this connection, Marzuki and Ginting stated: Simultaneous regional head elections that have taken place in Indonesia, regional head elections simultaneously have proceeded will, but the results of regional head election head elections have not only given birth to new leaders as a result of the
people choices, but also created various problems, such as the increasingly massive practice of money politics, conflicts, disputes, even riots always haunt the implementation of regional head elections.10 As a consequence, Pilkada as a moment of change that the community has been waiting for is sometimes not in line with the expectations of the community, namely the immediate realization of the vision and mission of the Regional Head in accordance with what was promised during the campaign. The inconsistency of regional executives towards these promises has created public doubts about the Pilkada as a means of change, giving rise to a pragmatic attitude of citizens towards executive candidates during the next Pilkada. The implication of this situation is that almost all of the people's political participation at the Pilkada can only be developed through a transactional approach such as the practice of money politics.
Implementation of Community Political Participation in 2020 Medan's Mayoral and Vice Mayoral Election
Measuring people's political participation in Medan during Pilkada is not easy, but, based on voter participation data, people's interest in exercising their right to vote is beyond expectations. This can be seen from the results of voting recapitulation indicating low participation rates. Suhartono, a member of the Medan Election Commission, stated: "In the 2015 Regional Head Elections, there were five districts pointing out low turnout rates, and the most extreme was that of Medan Amplas district showing the turnout rate of only 21.6 %, however, in the 2018 Regional Head Elections, such a district escaped from participation-prone zone with 61.4%. The participation-prone zones were Medan Maimun, Medan Baru, Medan Kota and Medan Sunggal districts having the lowest participation rate in the 2018 North Sumatra Governor Election."
Suhartono added the increasing number of participations can be seen from the results of the 2019 Presidential and Legislative Elections, noting 74%. Even though such percentage did not reach the national target, it was considered, however, quite significant in the last ten years. Likewise, in the 2018 North Sumatra Governor Election, Suhartono argued the participation rate was amounted to 55.80%. There are four districts having low participation rates, such as Medan Maimun, Medan Baru, Medan Kota and Medan Sunggal. Therefore, such districts were determined a priority for the Regional General Election Commission to increase voters' participation.
From Rush and Althoff's hierarchical theory, such as political participation falls into the participation in voting and total apathy categories. People participated in voting is based on patronage of a belief, for instance, either religion or culture and this participation is considered very small. Meanwhile, total apathy was caused by pragmatic emotions which were influenced by the previous regional head who did not make significant changes; all pairs of governor candidates in the 2018 North Sumatra election had a bad reputation.11
This reality shows a simple principle that the higher the hierarchy is, the smaller the quantity of individual involvement will be. However, voters in Medan did participate and feel apathy. In this case, Suhartono stated "The people's level of participation in Medan City can be rational and emotional. Voters' rationality was based on spontaneous and momentary patronage. Voters' emotionality was influenced by pragmatism in choosing a candidate; this means there existed direct benefits or not to voters.
In case of votes and total apathy, Nasution and Kushandajani argued community participation was influenced by cultural and religious patronage. This condition was due to the fact that the implementation of regional elections was full of identity issues such as local people and religion which greatly determined the level of participation in Medan.12 Reflecting on the Regional Head Elections in 2010 and 2018, it is sufficient to prove that the politics of identity had heavily colored the people's
10 Marzuki and Jauhari Ginting, Realizing Simultaneous and Quality Regional Head Election through Strengthening Supervision
Function: Study at the General Election Supervisory Board of North Sumatra Province, International Confrence on Multidiciplinary Research 2018, SCITEPRESS (2020) p. 442.
11 Faiz Albar Nasution and Kushandajani, Partisipasi Politik Masyarakat Kecamatan Medan Maimun pada Pemilihan Gubernur
Sumatera Utara Tahun 2018, JPPUMA: Jurnal Ilmu Pemerintahan dan Sosial Politik UMA (2019), p. 231.
12 Ibid.
involvement in the election.13 Suhartono stated: "The 2010 Mayoral and Vice Mayoral Election only noted participation of 38.28%. Sofyan Tan's defeat was caused by politics of identity in which Muslims did not vote for him. The same phenomenon occurred in the 2018 North Sumatra Governor Election in which there existed issues of religion and regional chappie who were brought by the winning team of one of the candidates and of the supports of Ulema's figures; all of them remained a patron". Likewise with the regional election in Medan, voters were totally apathetic due to their emotional nature, as a result, they tend to be pragmatic. All this was influenced by Medan's Regional Heads who did not make changes and innovations in the development, and, even, several previous Regional Heads had a bad reputation. Therefore, lack of trust in the government greatly influenced the people not to vote during the election.
The problem of low voter turnout was not new in Medan and it always appeared during election, that, according to us, should have the solution. During the first Pilkada in 2005, two pairs of candidates, namely, Maulana Pohan - Sigit Pramono Asri and Abdillah - Ramli participated and there were 1,450,596 of total number of voters and 3,928 of number of polling places. The voters who came to TPS amounted to 793,592 (54.7%) but there were 657,067 (45.3%) voters were absent. With 54.7%, the participation rate was considered low although this was the first direct election. In fact, political participation in a region is related to qualified administration of general election in a democratic system.14
In 2010 election, ten pairs of candidates participated; the total registered voters was 1,961,155 with 3,897 number of voting places, however, the number of voters who voted was 699,991 (35.69%). There were 678,804 valid votes and 21,187 and totally, there were 1,261,164 (64.31%) votes. The total votes indicated a decrease compared to 2005 election.15 The 2015 election has noted two pairs of candidates (Dzulmi Eldin - Akhyar Nasution and Ramadhan Pohan - Eddie Kusuma) and there existed 1,985,096 voters and 3,024 voting places. The results showed that there were only 507,351 (25.5%) valid votes and 24,366 invalid. In short, there were 1,477,745 (74.44%) voters who did not come to the voting places and such percentage became the largest figures during all elections.16 In the 2020 election, two pairs of candidates have taken part (Akhyar Nasution - H. Salman Alfarizi and Bobby Nasution - Aulia Rachman). The recapitulation data of Regional Election Commission indicated that about 1,635,846 voters have been listed; however, only about 748,882 (45.97%) became valid votes and 12,915 invalid ones. All this means about 874,049 (54.03%) people did not exercise their right to vote in the election which was held in December 9, 2020.17 Since the simultaneous local elections were held in 2005 in Indonesia, the level of people's political participation in Medan was shown in Table 2.
Table 2: Participation of local voters in Medan for four elections
Year Fixed list of Valid votes Percentage
permanent voters
2005 1.450.596 793.592 54,7°%
2010 1.961.155 750.919 38,28°%
2015 1.998.835 506.070 25,31%
2020 1.601.001 748.822 45,8%
Source: Medan election commission
Suhartono argued that "the national target for the number of people's participation of 77.5% was not obtained in Medan because voter turnout rate only reached around 45.80%". General Election
13 Irfan Prayogi and Ian Pasaribu, "Bekerjanya Politisasi Identitas Pada Pilkada Sumut 2018 (Menakar Pengaruh Isu Agama
Terhadap Kemenangan Edy Rahmayadi dan Musa Rajekshah). Jurnal Adhyasta Pemilu 1 no. 1 (2018), p. 11-28.
14 Data Pilkada Kota Medan 2005. https:kpud- medankota.go.id/datapemilu2005/.tersedia disitus: https://kpud-
medankota. go. id/data-pemilu-2005/.
15 Septianda Perdana, "Rahudman dan Sofyan Masuk Putaran Kedua Pilkada Medan 2010." https://nasional.tempo.co/read/248453/rahudman-dan-sofyan-masuk-putaran-kedua-pilkada- medan.
16 Haris Prabowo, "Hasil Quick Count Pilkada 2015 Kota Medan." Barometer.com, 2016. //www.indobarometer.com/publish/?read=quickcount/1613/Hasil-Quick-Count-Pilkada-2015-Kota-Medan.
17 KPU Kota Medan, Faktor-faktor yang Mempengaruhi Partisipasi Politik Masyarakat pada Pilkada Serentak Kota Medan 2020. Draft Laporan Akhir, 2021. Medan. p. 26
Commission in Medan has attempted to increase community participation, including providing vote education, activities which were not only carried out by the commission, but also be carried out by all elements of local communities, such as universities, with a purpose to increase the number of votes.
In addition to increase public participation in Pilkada electoral process, the KPU have tried to attract first-time voters to contribute in the regional political life and in the application of their political rights properly. In 2020, from Central Statistics Agency (BPS), Indonesia's population was dominated by the Generation Z born from 1997 up to 2012 and by the millennials born from 1986 to 1996; their total number was 75.9 million (or equivalent to 27.49%) of the Indonesia's total population (270.2 million), and specifically, the millennials reached 69.90 (or 25.87%). All this means that the two generations have already exceeded half of Indonesia's population.18. In Indonesia, voters with 17 to 22 years of age and classified as school and university students have always been a topic, so that the KPU made continuous efforts through political education, such as, outreach and seminars or political education workshops for novice voters, creating a general election library and others, so they could participate actively during the election.
Obstacles and Solutions to Increase Community Participation in Mayoral and Vice Mayoral Election
In the community participation, various obstacles existed, either in the internal side of KPU itself, or from the external parties, for instance community. The obstacles might root from three factors. Firstly, the personal technicality is related to the business of upper-class community who organized family gathering and/or travel abroad during the H-Day although it was a national holiday during 2020 election.19 Secondly, candidate pairs were appreciated on the basis of cognitive (voters had no knowledge about them), affective (voters had no knowledge on their quality), and vision and mission aspects. Such aspects were motivated by voters' parochial political culture, in which political role or political participation was very low because of cognitive factors. The parochial political culture was characterized by undeveloped hopes for future changes from the political system. Lastly, technical administration was concerned with partially undistributed C6 form which caused voters to be reluctant to come to voting places.20 In this connection, high number of voters who did not take part in the 2020 election became serious problems, for example, the number of voters with no C6 form increased significantly. Consider Table 3 for complete information about the causing factors.
Table 3: The Voters' Causing Factors Not Giving Their Votes
No Causing factors %
1 Administrative technic 17.6
1.1 Never get C6 form 11.6
1.2 Far voting places from dwellings 2.8
1.3 Wrong address 3.2
2 Candidate pairs 25.1
2.1 Never know the candidates 7.9
2.2 Candidates' quality 13.0
2.3 Candidates' vision and mission 4.2
3 Covid - 19 10.6
4 Personal aspects 34.4
4.1 Overslept, lazy, and drank coffee at shops 3.7
4.2 Merchandise 4.6
4.3 Visiting the deads 3.7
4.4 Working 4.2
4.5 Sick 4.2
4.6 Out of the station 5.1
18 Xinhua Guo Yage, "Memacu Partisipasi Anak Muda dalam Hajatan Politik." Mimbar Umum, Medan, 2022, p. 10.
19 KPU Kota Medan, Loc.Cit.
20 Affan Sulaiman. "Demokrasi dalam pemilihan Kepala Daerah." Jurnal Ilmu Pemerintahan 1, no. 1 (2015) p. 13-15. https://core.ac.id.
4.7 Giving births 3.7
4.8 Late 4.2
5 Apathetic 3.2
6 No campaigns 2.8
7 Choosing no candidates 3.7
8 No knowledge/no answers 3.7
Source: Data KPU Kota Medan
The COVID-19 pandemic itself had become one of the obstacles for the community to vote, and, as a result, low public participation increased. However, Suhartono, the election commissioner, said: "The COVID-19 pandemic itself is not a big threat to community participation in the 2020 Medan Mayor election, in the sense that participation is hampered due to the pandemic which is relatively low compared to other factors." Community participation was important as a manifestation of legitimacy for the elected leader and, in normal situations, might include ten activities: (i) building cooperation with the commission to carry out election socialization activities, (ii) to carry out voters' education about the election stages, and the candidates' vision and mission, (iii) members of political parties involved in the candidates' visits to the Regional Heads and Deputy Regional Heads, (iv) voters participated in casting vote in which they had to be registered in the permanent voters list (DPT), (v) information related to the election implementation through reporting or broadcasting of various types of mass media had to be disseminated, (vi) provide active support to voters or to certain candidates, like, giving campaign fund donations and organizing election campaigns, (vii) invite voters to express objections or to know candidates' programs, (viii) complaints about alleged violations of Election Crimes, Election Administration, and the Election Organizer Code of Ethics to the competent institutions had to be responded, (ix) conduct surveys on the voters' perceptions or opinions about the candidates and publish their perceptions, and (x) carry out a quick count at the TPS samples.
In the pandemic situation during 2020 election, the ten activities was impossible to carry out normally although, however, participation in the electoral process was essential. The impact was that election could bring big risk of legitimacy due to the low number of voters to vote. Taking this into account, there were at least two classic strategies that were relevant to gather collective awareness which pragmatically increased voter turnout. First was the opinion leader strategy to involve religious and community leaders to facilitate the penetration and to work in villages. In some regions, their fatwas and advice were more audible and could be accepted by all religions and all levels of society. So, in order to be more formal and effective, a cooperation agreement needs to be drawn up between the regional commission and the religious and community leaders.
The second was related to technical strategy called jemput bola (picking up the ball). In previous election, this method was used by TPS officers to help hospital patients and detainees at Sector and Resort Police offices in which election officers persuaded reluctant voters to come to voting places although they might be fear of the COVID-19 outbreak, especially old-aged voters, or voters with special needs, who could be vulnerable to infection. Technically, the officers visited voters' houses accompanied by security officers and witnesses.
CONCLUSION
After the discussion above, conclusions can be drawn. The Mayoral and Vice Mayoral direct election in Medan is suitable to an affirmation of Law Number 23 of 2014 concerning Regional Government, Law Number 7 of 2017 concerning General Elections, Law Number 6 of 2020 concerning Stipulation of Government Regulations in Lieu of Law Number 2 of 2020 concerning the Third Amendment to Law Number 1 of 2015 concerning the Stipulation of Government Regulation in lieu of Law Number 1 of 2014 concerning the Election of Governors, Regents and Mayors to become Law, then implemented through Government Regulation Number 49 of 1998 concerning the Third Amendment Based on Government Regulation Number 6 of 2005 concerning Election, Ratification, Appointment and Dismissal of Regional Heads and Deputy Regional Heads, along with other legal institutions issued by the KPU and election supervisory board (Bawaslu) of the Republic of Indonesia. In 2020 election in
Medan, two pairs of candidates (Akhyar Nasution--H. Salman Alfarizi and Bobby Nasution--Aulia Rachman) and the total number of permanent voters is 1,635,846. Of them, only 748,882 (45.97%) came to vote and the number of invalid votes is 12,915, meaning that around 874,049 (54.03%) of voters do not vote while the national target is 77.5% but such target does not fulfill since the voter turnout rate is only 45.80 %. The obstacle factors have something to do with technical nature, such as, individual members of the community, candidates themselves, as well as tech-nical administration. In this context, the solutions are to involve opinion leader and ball picking-up strategies.
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