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‘I’ll vote randomly’: Legislative candidates remain distant from diaspora community
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Local poll administrators (KPPS) show a ballot paper for the legislative election to a voter on Dec. 29, 2023, during an election simulation at the South Jakarta Elections Commission (KPU) office in Jakarta. The KPU holds voting day simulations to educate the public ahead of the voting day slated for Feb. 14. (Antara/Muhammad Ramdan)
Alicia, a 30-year-old designer who has spent half her life in Malaysia, has her weekend plans set. On Saturday, she will drive to the Indonesian embassy in Kuala Lumpur, where she will be given two ballot papers. One for picking her presidential pick, and the other to choose her legislative representative.
For the latter, she has planned to employ her usual strategy: choosing randomly.
“I don’t even know these people, or what they do. None of them, I feel, have ever engaged or socialized with the diaspora community here,” she told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
Unbeknownst to Alicia and many other members of the Indonesian diaspora, their legislative votes are among the most sought-after in the country.
The Jakarta II electoral district covering Central Jakarta, South Jakarta and overseas voters is known to be a tough electoral district where dozens of big names are among the 125 legislative candidates vying for seven seats in the House of Representatives.
Out of the 4.3 million registered voters in the district, 40 percent are members of the diaspora across 128 cities overseas who will cast their votes either by mail, by going to polling stations that will open for a day from Monday to Feb. 14 or by using mobile ballot boxes.
Despite accounting for a large portion of the district’s votes, the Indonesian diaspora community has for a long time expressed a sense of distance and detachment from legislative representatives.
