Policy Network for the 2024 General Election Implementation in Riau Province as Reviewed from the Lens of Women's Representation

This paper analyzes the implementation of Indonesia’s 2024 General Election in Riau Province through the lens of women’s representation and the policy network among key actors. Drawing on official election documents, regulations, and statistical reports, we map interactions between the Provincial General Election Commission (KPU), the Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu), political parties, media, and civil society organizations. Riau’s Daftar Calon Tetap (DCT) for the provincial parliament comprised 895 candidates, 293 of whom were women (≈32.7%), exceeding the statutory 30 percent threshold. Yet structural and cultural barriers continue to limit substantive representation, including tokenistic candidate placement, uneven party compliance, financing constraints, and fragmented inter-institutional coordination. Using a policy network framework, we identify gaps in enforcement, information flows, and resource exchange that reduce the effectiveness of affirmative action. We recommend strengthening legal enforcement, building joint gender taskforces, supporting party-level candidate pipelines, enhancing gender-sensitive political finance, and investing in leadership development for women candidates. The study contributes a provincial case that connects quota compliance to policy network quality, offering lessons for subnational electoral governance in Indonesia.