<![CDATA[This article examines the policy process of the FreeIndonesia’s national Health Insurance Program in Padang City, regulated by Mayor’s Regulation (Perwako) No. 160 of 2025. While a growing body of literature has examined the politics of welfare expansion and health coverage in Indonesia, previous studies have paid limited attention to how electoral welfare promises are transformed through bureaucratic and institutional mechanisms at the subnational level. Rather than viewing the program as a direct realization of an electoral campaign promise, the study analyses how electoral commitments were institutionally rationalised through interactions among policy actors, the policy environment, and bureaucratic politics. Employing a qualitative case study with an interpretative policy analysis approach, the research draws on Anderson’s policy process framework, Peters’ concept of bureaucratic politics, and Lipsky’s theory of street-level bureaucracy. Data were generated from 16 semi-structured interviews with executive, technical-bureaucratic, frontline, and beneficiary actors; document analysis of regulations and budget records; and field observation between September-December 2025. The findings indicate that the universal electoral promise was translated into administratively selective policy criteria through bureaucratic gatekeeping, frontline discretion in verification and prioritization, and the policy environment’s role as both constraint and source of legitimacy. The study contributes the concept of constrained electoral welfare to capture a recurring configuration in which symbolic universalism is politically maintained while selective administrative mechanisms ensure policy feasibility.]]>
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