In this PhD seminar, Adrianus Hendrawan presents his research on factors affecting re-election in Indonesia’s mayoral elections.

Direct mayoral elections in Indonesia have seen a high rate of re-election of incumbents since they began in 2005. By applying regression discontinuity estimations on a newly-developed data-set on mayoral elections results in Indonesia, this research finds that incumbency increases a candidate’s probability to participate in and win the next mayoral election by about 48 per cent and 44 per cent, respectively. These effects are stronger in districts with better access to basic services and regions that were not affected by district splitting. The results might suggest that voters seek to re-elect well-performing mayors.