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Two potential 'blank box' victories signs of public protest
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Workers sort and fold ballots for Ciamis regency election at the Ciamis General Elections Commission (KPU) office in West Java on Nov. 8, 2024. (Antara/Adeng Bustomi)
The projected outcomes of two uncontested regional head elections indicate that the sole candidates have failed to win their races, a phenomenon experts say reflects signs of dissatisfaction with the dominance of political parties and their candidates.
In the first nationwide simultaneous regional elections last week, voters in West Papua province and those in 36 regencies and cities across the country chose between a sole candidate and a kotak kosong (blank box) on the ballot. The number is the highest since 2015, the first time the nation held local elections simultaneously in half of the regions in the country.
Voting for a blank box indicates that voters have actively rejected the sole candidate pair, rather than simply abstaining.
While most sole candidate pairs are leading in their regions, unofficial vote count and quick count results suggest that those running uncontested for Bangka regent and Pangkalpinang mayor in Bangka Belitung province have failed to secure a majority of the votes.
They are Bangka regent candidate Mulkan and running mate Ramadian, and Pangkalpinang mayor candidate Maulan Aklil and running mate Masagus Hakim. Both Mulkan and Maulan are politicians of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), who ran for reelection with the backing of all political parties in their respective legislative councils.
An unofficial count from election monitoring platform JagaSuara shows that the Maulan-Masagus pair garnered only 42.02 percent of the vote, while the Mulkan-Ramadian pair won just 42.75 percent of the vote.
JagaSuara suggests that sole candidate pairs in the other regions are on course to win their elections, some by landslide margins, such as in the West Papua governor election.
