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Poor-quality candidates blamed for low voter turnout
Jakarta Globe - December 11, 2015
The polling commission, also known as the KPU, earlier estimated that 77.5 percent of eligible voters would cast their votes, predicting that people would be excited about participating in the country's first simultaneous regional elections, held in 264 provinces, districts and cities across Indonesia.
But some survey groups estimated that only an average of 60.5 percent of eligible voters cast their ballot on Wednesday, with some areas reporting turnout of less than 50 percent.
The estimates come as no surprise to Masykurudin Hafidz, coordinator of the People's Voter Education Network (JPPR), saying that the lack of credible candidates put off many voters.
"The majority of regions staging their elections were only contested by two or three candidates who did not fulfill the voters' aspirations. Political parties are to blame because they only supported popular candidates with huge capital, which caused many voters to be disinterested," Masykurudin said on Friday.
He said there needed to be reforms in how parties selected their candidates, most of whom, he claimed, are not qualified to run and have questionable track records.
Djayadi Hanan, executive director of Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting, a think tank, said there was some hope for improvement in the next batch of simultaneous regional elections, slated for 2017, after the Constitutional Court recently made it easier for independent candidates to run.
"There are a lot of potential candidates who have topped a number of surveys who were unable to run [this year] because they couldn't secure the support of political parties," Djayadi said.
"This year's elections greatly favored those with support from political parties. We need more independent and alternative candidates."
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