December 17, 2025 – The Executive Director of APEKSI was one of the speakers at a public discussion by the Regional Autonomy Monitoring Committee (KPPOD) entitled “Regional Autonomy at the End of the Road? Reflections on the Implementation of Regional Autonomy in 2025.”
This discussion highlighted various critical challenges that threaten the sustainability of decentralization in Indonesia. Threats of Autonomy Regression: KPPOD assesses that regional autonomy is at a crossroads or even on the verge of decline. This is due to central policies that are considered to be withdrawing regional authority, Budget & Fiscal Efficiency: Sharp attention is given to the reduction of the Transfer to Regions (TKD) budget which is considered to narrow the room for regional governments to serve the public, Regional Election Issue via DPRD: The re-emergence of the discourse on regional head elections through the DPRD is considered a step backwards for local democracy that has been built through direct regional elections, and Government Response: Director General of Regional Autonomy of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Akmal Malik, expressed a different view by stating that the implementation of regional autonomy in 2025 is still on the right track, based on data on economic growth and the decline in poverty rates in the regions.