Semarang, C Java (ANTARA News) - Home Affairs Minister Tjahjo Kumolo hailed the National General Election Commissions (KPU) suggestion to postpone the simultaneous regional head elections to early 2016.

The Home Affairs Ministry welcomes the suggestion, Kumolo told ANTARA in a short text message on Tuesday.

If given adequate time to prepare, the KPU will be able to implement and consolidate the elections better, the minister said.

The entire process of the simultaneous regional head elections will include the campaign period, the voting day, and the inauguration of the elected regional heads.

The elections need to be postponed because the number of regions that will hold them will increase from 204 districts/cities to 304 and from eight provinces to 10, he noted.

Kumolo is of the view that it would be better for the country to have a two-year interval between general elections. With one having been held in 2014, the next round of elections should be held in 2016.

"The next general elections will be in 2019, while the simultaneous regional head elections will be in 2016," Kumolo, a senior politician of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI), said in his text message.

The simultaneous regional head elections were earlier scheduled to be held in December 2015.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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