COMPLETION REPORT
Comparative Study on Election Management between Japan and Indonesia
Ms. Sri Nuryanti
Researcher
Center for Political Studies,
Indonesia Institute of Sciences (LIPI)
From the research, it should be reported that the electoral system that applied in Japan and electoral systemapplied in Indonesia will influence to the management system of election. The electoral system will touch upon big
picture of the electoral system while the management of electoral system will be done by General Election
Commission on managing secretariat, managing voter, candidate, campaigning and casting ballot.
From the research, it is found the fact that in Japan, the vice governor is chosen by the elected governor. Most
probably, the vice governor is coming from local bureaucrat background. The elected governor is authorized toask the central government’s representative to be the vice governor. This is different from Indonesian local
electoral system, where the candidacy of governor, Meyer or regent should come in pair: the candidate forgovernor/Meyer/regent with the candidate of the vice governor/Meyer/regent. Regarding with the candidacy, there
is significant point affecting the process of making candidates. In Indonesia, pair of candidates can be endorsed bypolitical parties or independent candidates that endorsed by certain number of people (from 6,5% to 10% ofavailable voters) reside in the region. For the independent candidate, the General Election commission has to verify
the id card of supporters who endorse the candidacy.
This research is found out that in Japan, candidate can withdraw from candidacy while in Indonesia is not allowed.
Once candidate make themselves as candidates, they could not withdraw their candidacy. In Japan, as happened inIwate, the election commission is directly announce the winning candidate while there is only one candidate left
due to withdrawal of other candidates. As at the beginning, it is found that there are two candidates.
In Japan, the local election is for electing local legislative. This is something different to what applied inIndonesian system where local election is conducted separately from the legislative election. In Indonesia, the local
election is only to elect local executive. Therefore, in the management side, the election commission administers
the candidate differently. In Japan, when it is called local election therefore, the general election will administercandidate for both election candidates: for the Member of Parliament at local parliament and for executive forgovernor and Meyer. While in Indonesia, the election commissions for local election will only dealing with paircandidate for Governor-Vice governor, Meyer-Vice Meyer and Regent-Vice Regent. The administrativerequirement of the candidates should be verified by the election commission. After the election commission seethat all requirements are fulfilled, then electoral commission will announce the candidates formally.
The ways they conduct campaign are quite similar to what applied in Indonesian electoral system. The different isonly the participants where in Japan, the participant are few and mostly be done by candidate himself/herself.
While in Indonesia during campaigning, there are usually hundreds or thousands people gathered in public space
especially at playing ground/boulevard and usually being entertained by artist, singer, and musicians to get wider
attention of the people. The differences on campaigning process are in the following illustration. In Japan,
campaigning is using the social media, flyers, meet and greet campaign in the street. While in Indonesia,
campaigning is using social media, flyers, meet and greet/limited meeting, and campaign in public space with huge
number of audiences. In this phase, the electoral commission according to electoral law is regulating the campaign
and observe the implementation of the campaigning process.
From the above research, it is conclude that in order to nurture the democracy, both countries can learn from eachelectoral system and managerial aspect of election that applied in each country. In managing candidacy especiallywhen there is only single candidate in Japan can be seen as learning point by Indonesia, and campaign model
applied in Indonesia can be seen as good means to increase political participation in Japan.

Publication of the Results of Research Project:
Verbal Presentation (Date, Venue, Name of Conference, Title of Presentation, Presenter, etc.)
Date: 5 November 2015 at Grand Inna Muara Padang and 7 November 2015 at KPU Bukittinggi
Name of Conference: Focus Group Discussion on Comparative Local Election
Title of presentation: Preliminary Research Finding of Comparative Local Election: Iwate (Japan) and West
Sumatera (Indonesia)
Presenter: Sri Nuryanti
Discussants: Dr. Aidinil Zetra, Ardyan, SH,MH and Drs. Mufti Syarfi (Padang) and Khairul Fahmi(Bukittinggi)
Thesis (Name of Journal and its Date, Title and Author of Thesis, etc.)
I will write article in Journal published in Japan soon.
Book (Publisher and Date of the Book, Title and Author of the Book, etc.)