Apr 09 2009
Many Indonesian people lose their right as voter in the legislative election today
Due to poor quality of data collection for the Permanent Voters List (DPT) in Indonesian’s legislative election 2009, many Indonesian people who have a legal right to vote can not join in the legislative election today.
This for a democracy rather unfortunate situation not only occurs in remotes areas with lack of transportation or communication, but also in the capital city Jakarta and it’s surrounding areas. It is caused by the government’s poor system for registering the voters and on top of this the updating of these lists is erratic. Migrant people moving around in indonesia is in effect excluded from participating in the election. After moving from one place to another it can take several years to be registered in the new place as a voter.
Ironically, Indonesian people who can not join as voters is not only common people, but also important people such as politician candidate like Zulfan Lindan the secretary general of Partai Nasionalis Banteng Kemerdekaan (PNBK) political party who also competes as legislative member due to his name is not in DPT’s list. He is just one sample from many other important people in the community such as: political party’s activist, head of community, and many more…
“The loss of critical voters is very large, this condition can decrease the quality of elections 2009’s result,” said Edy Suandi Hamid, Rector of Islamic University of Indonesia, in Yogyakarta.
