Tag: Indonesian

More than 190 million Indonesian voters are heading to the polls for an election that will test the country's democracy. Read more: Indonesia election puts Islam on the ballot The all-important presidential vote is a remake of the 2014 contest, with incumbent Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, once again going up against former general Prabowo Subianto. Jokowi won the 2014 election with 53% of the votes, and ran his campaign by promoting Indonesia's social plurality, while promising to boost the economy and improve infrastructure. This time around, Subianto hopes to edge off Jokowi by running on a platform of law and order, combined with conservative Islamic values. Jokowi hopes Amin can help bring in more conservative, traditional, and rural voters. "Religious regulations are used as political tools, especially in local areas, to strengthen support among an incumbent leader's constituency prior to an election," Ray Rangkuti, from the Indonesian politics watchdog Lingkar Madani, told DW. However, the parliament is decisive in creating the field for presidential elections. Sixteen parties are competing in the 2019 parliamentary elections, but Indonesian voters are also somewhat forced into voting for establishment parties. And once in parliament, parities who want to put a candidate on the ballot must have at least 20% support in the current parliament, or alternatively have won at least 25% of the vote in the latest election. Jokowi's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) won 19% of the vote in 2014, the largest party in parliament, but still under the threshold to field a candidate without a coalition.

In 2013 the Constitutional Court ruled that beginning in 2019 the legislative and presidential elections were to be held simultaneously on the same day to reduce “horse trading” or transactional alliances made among parties following the legislative elections. Time will tell if the simultaneous elections fulfill their purpose of reducing transactional politics. However, some legislative candidates aren’t waiting for the election outcome, with candidates in areas hostile to their party’s presidential candidate going against their party’s alliance and openly supporting the opposing candidate. It is vitally important to understand what other potential effects holding the elections simultaneously has on the campaign and Indonesian politics more broadly. Open list voting has led to more personalized and less party policy-based political campaigning, as candidates from not only opposing parties but also from within the same party compete for votes. So, what are some of the unintended effects of the simultaneous elections? One of the expected effects is that the two presidential parties will make gains in the legislative elections, riding the “coat-tail” effect of the popularity and attention the presidential candidates garner. People don’t know what parties think about different issues.” Puteri Komarudin, a Golkar candidate running for the House in West Java VII, said she is often contacted by the media for comment on the presidential election despite not being officially in the presidential campaign team, and that “only a few media ask questions about the legislative campaign, the rest are very presidential election centric.” This lack of media attention is mirrored in the voting public. Buky Wibawa, regional council candidate and senior figure of Gerindra’s West Java provincial chapter, said these elections may not only be the world’s largest, but also “the most complicated election in the world.” Stephani Dania, running for the council in Bandung on the National Democratic (NasDem) ticket, said campaigning was not just a matter of gaining support from voters, but that a large portion of her time was spent educating voters on the voting process for the different levels of government. This money saved would be well spent on a significant education campaign to inform voters on how the different levels of government work and how to fully participate in the biggest election day the world has ever witnessed.