REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The General Election Commission (KPU) has completed the rundown of official debates of the two pairs of Indonesian presidential and vice presidential candidates. Their first round of debate to take place on Jan 17.

Speaking to journalists here on Monday after meeting with representatives of the two pairs' national campaign teams and TV channels broadcasting the debates live, KPU Chairman Arief Budiman said there were four main issues in the first round of debate. They are related to law, human rights, corruption and terrorism, he stated.

According to Arief, the rundown of the presidential and vice presidential debates consists of six segments. The first segment will be about the presentation of each pair's vision and mission.

"We have decided on several things, including the rundown of the debates, debate outline, arrangement of tables and chairs, and the number of invitees," he noted.

The second and third segments contain responses to open questions, namely the questions made by the panelists and submitted to the pairs of Joko Widodo (Jokowi)-KH Ma'ruf Amin and Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Uno one week prior to the convening of the debate.

Then, in the fourth and fifth segments, the two pairs of the presidential and vice presidential candidates would raise questions and respond to the questions they received in a debate format.

"In the sixth segment, the KPU would ask each of the pairs to make a closing statement," Arief explained.

At the meeting, the KPU also touched on its decisions to give the panelists' questions to the two pairs in advance, not facilitating the two pairs for directly delivering their vision and mission and reducing the number of panelists.

The KPU's decisions had sparked a public discourse, but the commission emphasized that its decisions had been approved by the two pairs' national campaign teams, he remarked.

Less than four months from now, Indonesia will have a new pair of president and vice president as a result of the 2019 Presidential Election scheduled on April 17. The KPU has forecast that some 192 million eligible voters will participate in this democratic process, which is expected to go fairly, democratically, and peacefully.

The eligible voters will not merely determine the fate of the Jokowi-Ma'ruf pair as well as Prabowo-Sandiaga but will also vote for legislators at the district/city, provincial, and national levels.

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