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Vote buying still widespread in Indonesia despite ineffectiveness
Political scientists and observers take a look at vote buying, which remains prevalent in Indonesia despite low returns.
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An official readies ballot boxes on Thursday at the Tanah Abang branch of the General Elections Commission (KPU) in Jakarta. (The Jakarta Post/Wendra Ajistyatama )
D
espite the many political and electoral reforms enacted after the New Order era, Indonesia’s elections are still marred by a seemingly intractable problem: vote buying.
The recent arrest of Golkar Party lawmaker Bowo Sidik Pangarso for suspected graft is a stark example of this. The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) confiscated dozens of cardboard boxes containing thousands of cash-filled envelopes that were reportedly to be used in buying votes on election day.
Burhanuddin Muhtadi, a political observer and executive director of Jakarta-based pollster Indikator Politik Indonesia, wrote in his 2018 doctoral thesis that 33 percent of all voters received money or other goods in exchange for their votes in the 2014 legislative election.
The figure ranks Indonesia third among Asian, African, and Latin American countries with the highest prevalence of vote buying, behind only Benin and Uganda.
In their recent book Democracy For Sale, political scientists Edward Aspinall and Ward Berenschot concluded that one of the main causes of rampant vote buying was the relative weakness of political parties.
Aspinall said that while exchanging favors for votes was also widespread in other developing countries such as India and Argentina, the practice of directly buying votes was much more prevalent in Indonesia because its political parties were less established in the grassroots and were thus less influential in voters’ daily lives.
“Because candidates are not able to rely on party influence for votes, they often use a more ‘vulgar’ form of money and transactional politics, through handing out cash directly to voters, providing gifts to community groups, giving out sembako [staple goods] and so forth,” Aspinall said at a discussion in South Jakarta on Tuesday.
