The Future Needs a Big Kiss
Why I’m not voting this week, Jakarta, ca. 2014
Indonesia will hold a national election this week to pick the people’s representatives. There are 152.286 candidates from some 350 electorates around the country.
Most people seem to concern themselves with the presidential election — which is still a few more months away — but the upcoming legislative election will be critical. This is the most important election in Indonesia for the last 30 years. It’s a milestone in history where the first time the country will elect a new leader, with no incumbent running and the military well detached from the political and democratic process. And well, only political parties with 20% vote can nominate a Presidential Candidate for the next run, to be held later in the year.
Jokowi seems to be very popular with the international audience but nationally, the game is still wide open. A lot can happen between then and now.
Now, myself. No, I don’t vote. For this week’s Parliamentary — I simply don’t have a good candidate for my vote. I don’t think any particular party are somewhat better or more relevant to the other. There isn’t enough difference between any of them significantly alter policy making process in the country. The cabinet mix may well be different, the flag-waving different song and the campaigns different bullshit. In other words, more of the same.
There are obviously a number of good people in the running and just by having fresh people in DPR, that will probably be the actual biggest accomplishment from 2014 election but still, none interesting enough in my voting area.
For the Presidential, I expect to be not much different. He’s probably well intent and popular but until two years ago, his portfolio was only the regency of Solo, roughly the size of Kebayoran.
Jokowi is neither ready nor capable of managing the Republic, not from what we’ve seen from him so far. Of course, he could turn out to be well capable, or very lucky. There’s no guarantee that he will be able to do more than any other — or not do similar damage later.
We’ve seen the folly of voting in democracy on sheer abundance of hope and unbalanced expectations. In 2004 SBY was voted in to usher in a new era with the largest number of individual votes than any other democratically elected president on the planet since.
It seemed simple enough at the time, to deliver Indonesia beyond the trapping of its ugly rippoff history and he was reelected again in 2009. President Yudhoyono then had the legitimacy and the political capital to do his job and yet, he squandered and basically dismantled every other things Indonesia might’ve achieved in his ten years of power.
I won’t be making the same mistake again. Not voting is a sober, conscious decision not to award the wannabes with the legitimacy of my vote. I’m willing to give Jokowi (or whoever wins) the benefit of the doubt by trying to make the best of it. After all, like any of you in Indonesia, I expect to see only real stuff, actual result from the leadership: better infrastructure, better law and order and better economy.
But in the unfortunate event that he was unable or (again) maliciously distracted to the same path of Indonesia’s past kleptocrat leadership, then we sure shouldn’t be waiting for another 10 years to bring him down.
