Everything To Know About Election Process Of Indonesia And The Controversial Winning Candidate (images @Gerindra)
Presidential election of Indonesia is one of the most complex process of elections. The country has gone to poll on February 14th. The archipelago’s presidential election, which is world’s largest single-day election, is dubbed as a “festival of democracy”. Indonesia is the third largest democracy in the world and this is the fourth time the country is going for presidential polls since it began direct voting in 2004.
Indonesia is an archipelago made up of 17,000 islands. There were more than 820,000 polling stations sprawled across the country this year, and counting of the vote started as soon as the voting completed. Many polling stations use a ‘quick count’, which is based on a sampling method. The idea is to give an early indication of who will be at the top in the end. The process at the polling station was overseen by about seven million election officials and independent workers. In the 2019 election, more than 890 election workers died due to the exhaustive polls, as reported by media.
There have been three presidential and vice-presidential pairing vying for the top job in the country this year. They are, former military general and defense minister Prabowo Subianto, a one-time academic Anies Baswedan, and a self-professed “man of people”, Ganjar Pranowo.
From the three presidential candidate, Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, from incumbent Gerindra party, has claimed victory citing unofficial quick counts. Quick counts suggest that Subianto has won 57% to 59% of votes. Though the laborious official count may take for up to 35 days to complete, quick counts have provided accurate result so far.
The incumbent President, Joko Widodo, who is popularly known as Jokowi has already served his two terms, marking 2024 election as a pathway for new leadership. Although the island nation is known for its democratic values, many believe that this year’s election will be business.
The Process:
The polling on February 14 started at 7 am and ended at 1 pm in all polling stations. All the Indonesians over 17 was given different ballot paper for choosing presidential and vice-presidential candidates. In the voting booth, people made their choice by piercing the ballot paper with a nail. The process is known as “coblos”, which means to “punch”. It is believed that using a nail to punch a hole in the ballot paper will make it harder to manipulate votes. Once voted, the voters have to dip their finger in indelible ink to prevent multiple voting.
Interestingly, votes are counted in public at polling stations. The ballot papers will be held up so that everyone can see the light shining through the pierced hole, and the names of the chosen candidates are read aloud. The sheer number of the voter turnouts, make the country’s election the largest one-day election in the world.
voting counting in Indonesia (image@KPU_ID)
The pairing of simultaneous elections with open counting system which is carried out manually make Indonesia’s election as one of the most complicated and complex elections in the world, said Titi Anggraini, an advisory board member of the Associated for Elections and Democracy and a constitutional lecturer at Universitas Indonesia, as quoted by Al Jazeera.
Though ‘quick counts’ may be practiced by many polling stations, official result of the election will take up to 35 days to be declared. Any legal complaints from any of the candidates involved, including the three sets of presidential and vice-presidential hopefuls should be filed within the 35 days of election.
In order to claim victory, the candidates need 50 percent of the overall vote and minimum of 20 percent of votes in each province to claim victory. If no single candidate could churn out the 50 percent threshold, the top two candidate will go for a second and final round of the presidential election on June 26. The new President will be sworn in by October this year.
Prabowo Subianto:
The 72-year-old Subianto is the current defence minister of Indonesia. The former military strongman is running for third time for the presidential post after having lost to the current President Jokowi in 2014 and 2019. He was long been criticised for his time in military. He was accused of allegedly kidnapping more than 20 pro-democracy activists at the end of 1990s. Around 13 of those kidnapped were never found, said AP. It is to not that he was never charged with case of kidnapping. Prabowo Subianto vehemently denied the accusations.
Subianto was also accused of human rights abuses in East Timor and Papua. He was discharged from military in 1998, and was banned from entering US until he was made defence minister under the rule of Jokowi. Subianto’s claiming of victory after the quick count was seen as an erosion of the democratic commitments of the third largest democratic nation in the world.
Subianto was an army general during the period of Suharto dictatorship, which came to an end 25 years ago in 1998. Suharto’s rule was characterized by widespread human rights violations and political unrest. Subianto was a commander of special forces called Kopassus. He is married to one of Suharto’s daughters.
During the campaign period, Subianto has put in some real effort to diminish the accusations against him. He and his strategists has used AI and social media platforms like TikTok to soften the image by portraying him as a grandfather figure to his young running mate Gibran Rakabuming. Being rejected by the human rights activists, he danced on the stages and aimed at the key concern of unemployment. With about half of the total population of the registered voters being under 40, Subianto promised 20 million jobs during his first tenure. He also promised to build three million free homes in rural, urban and coastal areas. He also advocates for changing the nation’s capital from Jakarta to the purpose-built city of Nusantara in the Island of Borneo. The move is opposed by other candidates ad it involve constructing government buildings and residential enclaves in the Island by clearing the lush tropical rainforests.
Prabowo Subianto’s running mate for the vice-presidential candidate is also a controversial figure. The 36-year-old Gibran Rakabuming Raka is the eldest son of current President Jokowi. He is also under age to be running for presidential and vice-presidential elections. In Indonesia, the age requirement for running for the presidential election is 40.
However, the Constitutional Court of Indonesia passed a ruling in last October that younger candidates could run for election if they had previously been elected to public office. The decision cleared way for Gibran, who is currently serving as the mayor of Surakarta. The decision form the top court was accused of nepotism because the head of the court during the time of ruling was Anwar Usman, who is Jokowi’s brother-in-law.
Prabowo Subianto is also the head of Gerindra party, which is a right-wing populist political party. Though Subianto and Raka do not have the explicit endorsement from Jukowo, who is supposed to be neutral, they are taken as the “continuity candidate”.
