ABSTRACT
Ever since the regional government bill of 1974 on decentralization and local autonomy at the kabupaten (district or regency) level, the discussion has been that local governments lacked the ‘capacities’ and ‘capabilities’ to implement decentralization. 1 The central government had used this argument to legitimize its heavy hand on the regions via the provincial governors—men appointed by, representing and belonging to the central government in Jakarta. ‘Deconcentration’ had been mainly introduced at the provincial level; nothing had been done to enhance the capacities of the district governments, and still nothing had been done to adjust the basic concept of decentralization within the Indonesian context.
