Single-Candidate Local Elections in Indonesia: Electoral Cartelization, the Empty Box, and Siyasah Dusturiyyah

Abstract

This study examines the legal problems and democratic implications of single-candidate regional elections in Indonesia’s 2024 Simultaneous Regional Elections, in which 37 regions had only one candidate pair. Although Constitutional Court Decision Number 100/PUU-XIII/2015 and Articles 54C–54D of Law Number 10 of 2016 provide a legal basis for conducting elections through an empty-box mechanism, the existing framework leaves unresolved questions concerning the legal consequences of an empty-box victory and the possible re-nomination of a candidate defeated by the empty box. This study addresses that gap by developing a conditional-legitimacy test linking constitutional law, electoral competition, and siyāsah dustūriyyah. It employs normative legal research using statutory, conceptual, historical, and comparative-law approaches. The primary legal materials consist of Constitutional Court decisions, legislation, General Elections Commission regulations, and relevant scholarship on democracy, electoral cartelization, and Islamic constitutional theory. The study finds that single-candidate elections are not automatically unconstitutional or inherently incompatible with Islamic political principles. Their legitimacy instead depends on the openness of nomination, the availability of meaningful political choice, the effectiveness of the right to reject through the empty box, and the accountability of the resulting leadership. The limited comparative analysis identifies Indonesia’s mechanism as a distinct institutional design because an empty-box victory may produce a binding legal consequence, although the rules governing renewed nomination remain inadequate. The study recommends an open repeat election with renewed candidate registration, greater decentralization of the nomination process, and separate national and local electoral calendars. Its conclusions regarding democratization and participation are normative inferences rather than statistically established causal claims.