Wholesale Coalition in a Sole Candidate Election: The Case of the 2018 Tangerang Regent Election Khoerun Nisa Fadillah 1 , Panji Anugrah Permana 2 {khoerun.nisa@ui.ac.id, panji.anugrah@gmail.com} Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia 1 Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia 2 Abstract. This study aims to explain why and how all political parties build a coalition to support the incumbent as the sole candidate in a local election. Specifically, it illuminates the case of the 2018 Tangerang local election, which provides rich data on both aspects of the wholesale coalition and the sole candidate. The article argues that the decision of each political party in the coalition to support the incumbent was a strategic choice. The parties considered that the incumbent had more political power and better chance at winning the election than the other candidates. Furthermore, the coalition’s decision was reinforced by the incumbent through side-payment politics in the form of policy promises, decision promises, emotional satisfaction, material benefits, and coattail effects. When agreements with the local party leader failed, the incumbent built an agreement directly with the central board of parties. The central board of parties has the authority to decide the nomination of the candidate, and the local leader inevitably had to accept the decision. Keywords: Coalition, Sole Candidate, Incumbent, Strategic Choice. 1 Introduction The emergence of sole candidate local elections increased after the Decision of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Indonesia in 2015, which regulates the occurrence of sole candidacy (i.e., only one pair of candidates). In 2015, three out of 269 regional elections had a sole candidate. This number increased to nine out of 101 elections in 2017 and then to 16 out of 171 elections in 2018. Research findings based on the 2015 local elections in Blitar, Tasikmalaya, and Timor Tengah Utara indicate that the emergence of sole candidate elections was triggered by parties’ resistance to the ruling party and led to the postponement of the elections [1][2]. Likewise (2017), sole candidate elections in Pati and Jayapura show resistance or pre-election competition among political elites [3]. However, in 2018, neither resistance nor competition among parties resulted in the emergence of sole candidacy election. Rather, agreements among parties to win the elections without an opponent can be seen as the primary causal factor. For example, in 13 of 16 sole candidate elections, such as the local election in Tangerang District, the sole candidates were supported by all parties that had seats in the local parliament (DPRD). In 2015–2017, the pattern of coalition among parties in sole candidate elections varied by region. In Timor Tengah Utara, the incumbent sole candidate was only supported by one political party, PDIP, while other parties did not support the pair. In other cases, such as in Blitar ISIP 2019, June 25-26, Semarang, Indonesia Copyright © 2019 EAI DOI 10.4108/eai.25-6-2019.2287994