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‘Dirty Vote’: A new, cleaner form of ‘serangan fajar’
From the timing of its online release and its substance, documentary film 'Dirty Vote' provides voters with the kind of transparent information critical to making up their minds about who actually deserves their vote.
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A still of the Constitutional Court from the documentary film ‘Dirty Vote’, released on YouTube on Feb. 11, 2024, is projected on a screen. (The Jakarta Post/PSHK)
Just 20 hours after a 1-hour, 57-minute documentary was released on Sunday by YouTube channels PSHK Indonesia and Dirty Vote, the film had amassed 5.2 million views.
Titled Dirty Vote, the documentary quickly gained popularity after its debut, rising to the top of the keywords trending on X (formerly Twitter) in Indonesia with 410,000 mentions.
Not only is the film thrilling for voters, but it also excites and worries those contesting the Feb. 14 election. The campaign team of one presidential candidate held a press conference two hours after the release of the film in an attempt to counter the content of the movie, which they called as slanderous.
To properly examine and address the film's substance, a significant amount of time and writing space is necessary. The film’s premiere date and its impact are noteworthy, as they have both served to remind us of serangan fajar, which translates as “predawn attack” but refers specifically to the vote buying tactics candidates deploy hours before voting begins at 7 a.m.
The serangan fajar used in previous elections is nothing like the one shown in Dirty Vote, however.
To quote Kompas.id, "the practice of giving away money before voting" is done in a structured and systematic manner, and is a tactic typically used by political candidates to win over voters.
The practice is done in the last minutes before the polls open, when voters have only a little time to think rationally and are thus vulnerable to the vote buying ploy.
