Arientha Primanita – Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi revived a call on Tuesday for governors to be appointed by provincial legislatures rather than through direct elections, citing the high cost of the ballots.

Gamawan, who first broached the idea in August 2010, said the government would include the proposal in a planned draft amendment to the 2004 Regional Governance Law.

"Elections at the provincial level now are too expensive, with candidates spending hundreds of billions of rupiah," he said. "Yet for all that expense, the impact is negligible," he added, arguing that governors were not as involved in regional policies and programs as mayors and district heads.

He said many officials are driven to engage in corruption once they are elected so they can recoup the high cost of running for governor. "That's why we want to make the election of governors as efficient as possible," he said.

He said provincial legislatures should also choose governors, as they did during former President Suharto's New Order era, because many governors end up falling out with their deputies, who are usually chosen from a different political party for the support they carry.

"What we're proposing is that the elections be held to choose only from among the gubernatorial candidates, not from the tickets," he said. "Once the governors are chosen, then they can go on to pick their deputies." The minister argued that taking gubernatorial elections away from the public and giving them to provincial legislators did not undermine democracy.

The Constitution, he added, stipulates that elections be held "democratically" but says nothing about whether they should be direct or indirect.

The proposal, which drew widespread criticism when it was first mooted, remains contentious, even among Gamawan's colleagues in the cabinet.

Hatta Rajasa, the coordinating minister for the economy and chairman of the National Mandate Party (PAN), said on Tuesday that he wanted the choice of governor to stay with the people.