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Indonesians in Hong Kong protest after being denied right to vote
Jakarta Globe - July 7, 2014
Arista Devi, an Indonesian living in Hong Kong, said the trouble started after a crowd of voters were shut out of a polling station in the city on Sunday.
"There were still many people queuing but suddenly they closed the gate to the polling station and the voters, who were mostly supporters of Joko Widodo and Jusuf Kalla, started to yell 'Jokowi, Jokowi!'" Arista told Tribunnews.
The protesters got even angrier, Arista said, when a member of the organizing committee commented that the polling station would be reopened only for those voting for Prabowo Subianto and Hatta Rajasa.
"During the demonstration the organizing committee commented, 'Please come in, but only those who vote for number 1.'" She said she could not identify the person who made the comment.
Arista said the Overseas Election Committee (PPLN) in Hong Kong also failed to anticipate voter turnout, which had tripled since the April legislative election.
"This election was different because the committee set the deadline until 5 p.m., but it turned out the number of voters was overwhelmingly high," she said "The queue stretched 500 meters."
The protest in Hong Kong quickly spread on social media. Indonesian internet users took to Facebook and Twitter to spread footage of the protest, as well as footage of the ensuing debate between voters and the organizing committee.
A member of the Joko-Kalla campaign team, Eva Kusuma Sundari, alleged the voters in Hong Kong were denied their right to vote intentionally, by people who wanted to prevent Joko's victory in the election.
Eva pledged that her party, the Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), would take action against the alleged election violation. "We will take action and protest to the General Election Commission (KPU) and the Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu)," she said.
Another PDI-P politician, Charles Honoris, said that the organizing committee in Hong Kong acted unfairly by denying the Indonesians in Hong Kong the right to vote.
"We want Bawaslu and KPU to immediately investigate the possibility that the organizing committee was not neutral, and we want them to immediately return the voting rights for those voters," he said.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs' spokesman Michael Tene said voting was the responsibility of PPLN and the ministry had nothing to do with the incident. "Our job is only to support and provide facilities for PPLN, but the venue and everything else were decided by KPU and PPLN."
Chalief Akbar, the Indonesian consulate general in Hong Kong, said the the polling station was closed based on the permit issued by authorities in Hong Kong. He said the invitation for the voters clearly stated that the voting started at 9 a.m. and ended at 5 p.m.
"At around 5:30 p.m. some 200 Indonesians who claimed they hadn't cast their vote staged a protest, they demanded the PPLN reopen the polling station," he told Detik.com.
KPU commissioner, Ferry Kurnia Rizkiyansyah, denied his organisation acted unfairly or had favored one presidential candidate.
"I don't have enough information about what happened there [in Hong Kong]," he said. "I am afraid of giving the wrong statement, but I want to emphasize that the committee was not favoring any candidate and we also believe that the committee was not preventing the voters' constitutional right to vote."
Ferry said the fact that hundreds of people were unable to vote should not immediately be translated as an injustice. "I believe the committee was obeying the rules," Ferry said. "I assume they were following the agreement that the voting should end at 6 p.m, and those who were not registered should have voted between 5 to 6 p.m," he said.
Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/hundreds-indonesians-hong-kong-protest-denied-right-vote/.
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