CALD Witnesses World’s Biggest Election

It was touted as the world’s biggest single-day elections with 192.8 million registered voters and 809,500 polling stations scattered across 18,000 islands.  The Indonesian election last 17 April 2019 was certainly one for the books, and the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD) was there to witness it.

With a delegation coming from Cambodia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, CALD met political party leaders, election watchdogs, businessmen and civil society activists in order to have a comprehensive overview of the Indonesian electoral process, as well as the issues and problems which were specific to the 17 April election – the first time that Indonesians vote simultaneously for president, vice president, and national/local legislatures all over the country.

“We are very impressed with the achievements of Indonesia in terms of consolidating its young democracy”, said Cambodia’s Mu Sochua.  “Indonesia, and more recently, Malaysia, have become democratic models here in Southeast Asia, especially at a time when much older democracies such as Philippines and Thailand are currently enthralled with populism and illiberalism, and Cambodia, Hong Kong and Singapore are becoming worse in terms of human rights.”

And these achievements were witnessed firsthand by the members of the CALD delegation during the few days they spent in Jakarta to observe the elections.  First and foremost, the organizations that the delegation met vouched for the independence and competence of the Komisi Pemilihan Umum (KPU), the general elections commission.  Second, there was a vibrant civil society working on issues such as election monitoring, hoax-busting, digital literacy, regional autonomy, among others, which, together with the media, provided the necessary check-and-balance to government agencies and political parties.  Third, despite the tense political environment, cases of election violence were relatively rare and isolated.

This was not to say that the recent Indonesian elections did not have its share of issues and problems.  For one, the politicization of religion was recognized as one of the biggest issues during the campaign.  CALD member-party, the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle or PDIP, for example, was portrayed as “enemy of Islam”, according to its secretary-general, Hasto Kristiyanto.  This is despite the party’s adherence to Pancasila, which prescribes “belief in one God in the context of Indonesian culture.”  Even the Nation Awakening Party or PKB, the other CALD member-party in Indonesia, also considered religious radicalization as a problem.  “We had to go back to the teachings of Nahdlatul Ulama to counter radicalization these elections”, said PKB Secretary General and Indonesian Minister of Labor Hanif Dhakiri. (Nahdlatul Ulama is the largest Muslim organization in Indonesia.)

Apart from politicization of religion, the other issues these elections include fake news and voters education.  In this regard, Mafindo, an anti-hoax civil society organization, launched CekFacta.com together with media publishers, journalists and other NGOs to fight the spread of misinformation in the lead up to the elections.  As regards voters education, organizations like Perludem deemed it necessary to have a website where the voters can learn more about the candidates running for elections.  This was important because this being the first time that Indonesia held simultaneous elections, the focus was more on the presidential and vice-presidential posts, and a large number of voters were not familiar with the candidates running for national and local legislatures.

Despite these issues, the general elections, by and large, went smoothly, with a number of reliable quick count results indicating a double-digit victory for incumbent Indonesian president and PDIP presidential candidate Joko Widodo.  PDIP was also predicted to remain as the biggest party in the national parliament.  Official results will not be released until 22 May 2019.