Initiative to Increasing Political Participation

KOMPAS/WINARTO HERUSANSONO

To speed up the process of assembling boxes, ballot containers in simultaneous elections, 17 Apri 2019, the General Election Commission of Semarang City, Central Java, Monday (11/2/2019) has begun the process of assembling ballot boxes in logistics warehouses in the Diamond Cipta Niaga, Banjarharjo, Semarang. Semarang City KPU mobilized around 10-12 volunteers from Kebonagung, Demak Regency, to work on assembling as many as 22,000 ballot boxes.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS—A number of nonpartisan public movement on overseeing and maintaining the integrity of the elections has started emerging ahead of the 2019 legislative and presidential elections on April 17.

These movements can help provide balance amid the social fragmentation and the complexity of holding the simultaneous election. They could also help boost political participation amid the declining voter turnout and election monitoring.

Voter turnout was relatively high in the 1999 election at 93.3 percent, but this dropped in the 2004 and 2009 elections. Voter turnout increased slightly in 2014 to 75.11 percent. Over the same period, the number of election monitors accredited by the General Elections Commission (KPU) also dropped from 66 institutions in 1999 to 29 in 2004, to 19 in 2009, and then to 22 in 2014.

After successfully mobilizing young people to monitor the 2014 election, the Network for Democracy and Electoral Integrity (Netgrit) has now established the Kawal Pemilu Jaga Suara 2019 (Protect Votes Election Guard 2019) movement.

The Kawal Pemilu Jaga Suara 2019 volunteers will monitor and photograph the vote count at polling stations, and then upload the photos to kawalpemilu.org to provide a vote recapitulation that is open to the public.

Another movement, the Jaga Pemilu (Protect the Election), has called on the public to monitor electoral fraud and voter intimidation in their areas. Other movements are providing political education and familiarizing the electoral process to increase voter participation, including online movements that are helping prospective voters to understand the actions of legislative candidates. These initiatives include Indonesia Corruption Watch’s (ICW) rekamjejak.net, the Forum for Elections and Democracy’s pintarmemilih.id , jariungu.com, and temanrakyat.id.

KOMPAS/HERU SRI KUMORO

The initiator of the Kawalpemilu.org website Ainun Nadjib explained the system and how the site works in the tabulation of the 2014 presidential election at the Kompas Daily Editorial Office, Jakarta, Tuesday (5/8/2014). Ainun explained that the idea of making the site was aimed at avoiding national divisions due to different support for presidential candidates.

More relevant

Sociologist Arie Sudjito of Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, said on Sunday that the 2019 election would be more challenging because it was complex in a different way than the 2014 election. The Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) thus needed to be on guard in terms of the technicalities.

In addition, this year’s election was characterized by strong political divisiveness. "Therefore, [voter] participation is more relevant. Not just in terms of a successful election with high voter turnout, but also

[in terms of] improving the quality of democracy and reducing the potential for grassroots conflict," said Arie.

Public participation could also have a positive impact on citizens, because they felt they had a role in the electoral process. In this regard, Netgrit founder Hadar Nafis Gumay said that involving volunteers was an important to raising public awareness.

Although there was no material reward, the public could be invited to participate in protecting the elections. Public participation was relevant in situations in which election organizers were often accused of being partisan, cheating and so on, said Hadar.

"If the [movements’] results are the same with the KPU\'s tally, they can strengthen the KPU as the election organizer. If anything is different, it could be used as input for the KPU’s corrections," he said.

Zaky Muzakir, an activist of the Teman Rakyat (Friend of the People) movement, said its activities also showed that familiarizing the elections could also increase the political literacy of voters.

However, senior sociology researcher Henny Warsilah at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) has warned that mobilizing volunteers to monitor the election results also has its own challenges, especially in maintaining a nonpartisan image. It was therefore important to screen volunteers, she said. (AGE/REK/INK/EDN/NTA)