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Purpose The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between leadership and the party’s image and voters’ satisfaction and voters’ loyalty in the regional election of the North Konawe District, Indonesia. Design/methodology/approach The study design is quantitative methods (Creswell, 2010). It is an explanatory research, investigating the relationship between variables (Kothari, 2004). The study population was the voters who participated in the 2015 regional head election of North Konawe. The population in this study was 37,429 people spread over 12 districts and 135 villages, and the sample size of this study was 276 respondents, based on sample size formulation in (Bungin, 2008). The method used to analyze the data in this study is generalized structured component analysis (GSCA), which investigate comprehensively the inner model (hypothesis testing for the structural model) and the outer model (measurement model for unobservable variables). The Sobel test (under the GSCA model) was used to test whether a particular variable mediates the relationship between endogenous variables and exogenous variables. Findings The party’s image influences voters’ satisfaction. The party’s image will not directly influence voters’ loyalty, but it will influence voters’ loyalty with the mediating effect of voters’ satisfaction. Research limitations/implications The findings of this study that makes the social security program as one of the themes in the competition reinforces previous studies such as in the Philippines, Thailand, Mexico and Brazil (2012). Various jargons are often thrown around to gain votes and support from the poor. For example, the term “populist economy”, where free public health and education services are often declared in various political campaigns, both in the legislative member and regional head elections. Practical implications The results of this research, i.e. the influence of the party’s image for electoral interests, would reinforce the results of previous studies. Sometimes the politicians use the poverty program, which is apparently neutral, but actually for the sake of political interests (Gallego, 2015). The results of this study show that the manipulation of government programs is often done to help the politicians in mobilizing the voters. However, in practices, the voters? satisfaction and loyalty are interpreted differently. The voters do not always sell their votes because of what they receive; it could be that the voters receive the assistance by considering it as a fortune or wage in return for helping the politicians. It was proved by the results of this study that the incumbent lost the election. Social implications Using the party’s image in a political contest has created serious implications in the development of democracy in Indonesia. Indonesia, which has chosen democracy as a political route, is still highly vulnerable to clientelistic practices. Although procedurally Indonesia has paved the main democratic consolidation after the reform, ranging from the legislative election to the presidential election to the regional head election, the practice of money politics is still occurring widely. The problem of vote-buying is more difficult to solve because law enforcement mechanisms are not conducted properly. For example, only three days were given to prove the allegation of vote-buying. Of course, this short time makes it difficult to prove the practice of money politics at lower levels. Originality/value The originality of this research can be seen from the following explanation: based on the results of data processing, there are interesting things observed, with the party’s image as the exogenous variable, voters’ satisfaction as the intervening endogenous variable and voters’ loyalty as the pure endogenous variable. This means that more and more community empowerment will increase the desirability of a candidate. This is unique in itself, where with this result, it can be concluded that North Konawe communities are more affected by the nature of the aid empowerment, durable and sustainable/long-term rather than momentary relief (cash).

Tulisan ini menjelaskan bagaimana politik uang dan politik etnis bekerja, apa yang lebih berpengaruh ketika keduanya diperhadapkan. Dengan mengambil konteks Pilkada Serentak 2017 yang berlangsung di Kota Kendari, tulisan ini menemukan politik etnis dan politik uang digunakan oleh para kontestan Pilkada untuk meraih dukungan pemilih. Namun demikian, politik etnis mengalami kekalahan atau gagal dalam menjaga loyalitas pemilih, ketika diperhadapkan dengan politik uang yang didesain secara rapi, masif, tepat sasaran, terstruktur, serta didukung oleh tim yang solid dan militan.Kata kunci: politik uang, politik etnis, pilkada.

This article aims to explain the governance of mining permits after the reform of the mining law and the issuance of the law on job creation. The research design used descriptive qualitative. The results of the study found: First, the Ministry of energy and mineral resources is the leading sector in the management of the mining sector at the national level. Meanwhile, at the local government level, the provincial and district/city offices of energy and mineral resources are played. Second, in Central Sulawesi Province mining business permits are issued by the One Stop Service Investment Office. Before the omnibus law, there are at least five stages that are passed in the licensing process, namely the application for a mining business area permit, an application for an exploration mining business permit, an application for a principle permit for the use of national strategic area space, and an application for an Environmental Feasibility Decree and Environmental Permit, as well as an application for a production mining business permit. Third, the issuance of law number 11 of 2020 concerning job creation (omnibus law) reduces the authority of local governments in managing mining permits in Central Sulawesi. In addition, the omnibus law provides convenience in environmental management, where environmental permits are replaced with environmental approvals that are integrated with business permits.

This article describes budgetary reform policies in the Covid-19 pandemic era and the local government's response. This article aims to answer how the regional budgeting mechanism is in the pandemic era, as well as the response of regional apparatus organizations to budgeting reform. The data sources in the article use the literature study method and documents sourced from the Southeast Sulawesi Provincial government and media coverage. This article finds that the Indonesian government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic issued a policy of budget refocusing. This policy applies to all ministries/agencies, including local governments, the responses of local governments are divided into two groups, specifically, there are those who do budget refocusing, but there are likewise local governments that do not refocus their budgets. The Southeast Sulawesi Provincial Government took the attitude of refocusing the budget by issuing Governor Regulation Number 10 of 2020, this shows that the regional government is responding to the direction of the central government. Nevertheless, this budget refocusing policy does not appear to have the full support of the Regional Work Units (SKPD) or the bureaucracy, which is subordinate to the governor. This can be seen from the existence of several SKPDs that maintain their budgets thus as not to experience a significant reduction. This finding shows that although budgeting reform during the pandemic period was implemented quickly, the substance, nominal and budget scope of each regional apparatus organization did not encounter much change.