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Choose your representative: Don’t send just any cat to Senayan
Voting in Indonesia is not a case of going into an Italian ice-cream parlor with 64 flavors to choose from. Voting is more like, to use the Indonesian expression, “buying a cat in the gunny sack”. They choose their cats blindly, not knowing and not caring whether they get alley cats, fat cats, wild cats or smelly cats.
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Motorcyclists pass a wall plastered with posters of legislative election candidates in Slipi, West Jakarta, on Monday. The wall also bears a mural promoting national unity.
(The Jakarta Post/Dhoni Setiawan)
G
oing into the polling cubicle to cast their vote on April 17, most people already know who to choose for president and vice president, since there are only two pairs of them, and these four candidates have been publicly exposed throughout the six-month long campaign period. But do voters know who they want to represent them in the national and regional legislatures?
Most people still have no clue about who will end up representing them in the House of Representatives (DPR) and the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) in Senayan. They are even more clueless about candidates in their provincial legislature or city-level council (DPRD).
The posters, banners and stickers with faces of candidates found on walls and in open spaces of their neighborhoods have hardly helped. To most voters, they are just names and photos of strangers.
The ballot for DPR members is a list of 16 political parties (20 in Aceh), and if each fields up to 10 candidates (depending on the number of seats in the electoral district), that’s 160 names from which to choose one to vote for. It’s almost the same story with the DPRD elections. The ballot for DPD in Jakarta has 46 names of candidates running as independents.
As in the past, most voters will almost arbitrarily cast their votes for the legislatures. Legend has it that one candidate at the top of the list on a DPD ballot won not because of his or her reputation, but because voters assumed that the name at the top must represent something.
Voting in Indonesia is not a case of going into an Italian ice-cream parlor with 64 flavors to choose from. Voting is more like, to use the Indonesian expression, “buying a cat in the gunny sack”. They choose their cats blindly, not knowing and not caring whether they get alley cats, fat cats, wild cats or smelly cats.
Looking at the corruption-ridden and infamously ineffective DPR and many DPRDs, voters share the guilt for sending the worst type of cats to Senayan.
That could change with the upcoming election. We can wrest some control from the hands of the big party bosses in Jakarta over who gets to represent us in Senayan and in the other legislatures.
A recent simulation by an acquaintance with little knowledge of politics shows that, if you spend one to two hours online, you can maximize the chances of sending candidates that most closely represent you.
Thanks to the internet, getting information about the candidates is a matter of a few clicks. The General Elections Commission (KPU) has a column that presents basic details on candidates for all legislatures. Other links that help to get to know candidates better include Jariungu, Pintar memilih and Teman Rakyat. Check them out to help you make up your mind.
Here are some tips on how to be a smart voter with the help of your smart phone.
- If you don’t have party preferences or affiliations, start narrowing it down from the 16 parties. Ideologically, they can be divided into two strains: 11 are nationalist-secular and five are Islamist or specifically targeting Muslims voters. If you loath the existing parties, then there are six new parties to choose from. If you don’t believe the new parties can make a difference, then go for one of the 10 incumbents. One of the new parties at least projects itself as the millennial party.
- If you already have a party affiliation or loyalty, then just pick the candidate that represents you closest from that party. In the case of choosing a DPR member, your option is narrowed down to no more than 10 names (usually the same number of seats at stake in the district).
- If you are into gender balance, pick a woman. Although the law says at least 30 percent of the candidates fielded by parties have to be women, only 17 percent of those that made it in 2014 were women.
- If you want to see younger politicians, check their date of birth (don’t rely on just their photo appearance). You may want a woman from the millennials, you further narrow down your options.
- You may want a candidate of your profession or alma mater. You can learn this too by going through their CVs.
- Do not vote for candidates that have not bothered to send their CVs to the KPU. They have something to hide.
- Do not vote for candidates that have served time for corruption. It’s another display of arrogance by party bosses to renominate candidates with criminal records, thinking that voters won’t notice.
- Avoid choosing the name at top of the list, unless you know her or him very well. The list is drawn by party bosses according to their preferences, some could be there because they are really good, but some because they are close relatives or because they contributed generously to party coffers.
- Be sure to choose a candidate that resides in your district. In many electoral districts outside Jakarta, the candidates running for seats have Jakarta ID cards yet they occupy top spots on the lists. Again, they are there courtesy of the party bosses. Don’t give your vote to them.
Democracy in the internet era puts more power in the hands of the people. As voters, we should use that to the maximum and choose the right people to represent us for the next five years.
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The writer is a senior journalist.
