<![CDATA[The paper discusses direct elections of local government leaders that have contributed to thecorruption in Indonesia and focuses on the quality of electoral process. This study aimed atidentifying the contribution of direct elections of local leaders on corrupt practices in Indonesia.It applied a quantitative research method and involved 85 provincial, district and city areas assamples in the Indonesian islands of Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi, Kalimantan, Nusa Tenggara,Maluku and Papua. The study proves that direct local elections have significant effects oncorruption committed by the heads of district government. Both process and quality of directlocal elections has jointly demonstrated a meaningful and significant effect on the corruption bylocal leaders. Thus, the better quality and process will immediately lower the corruption rate. Incontrast, the lower quality and process will contribute to a higher corruption rate. Partially, theinfluence of the local election process is more powerful than the quality of direct local elections,since direct local election process requires the government to spend a vast amount of funding onthe preparation, implementation, validation and the inauguration of the elect local governmentleaders. This study only involved 85 areas that have organized direct local elections. A furtherstudy should be expanded to more sample areas in order to collect more data that can completethe current research findings.Keywords: Direct local elections, corruption, local government leaders, district, city.]]>
