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Voter turnout fails to meet expectations
Jakarta Post - July 25, 2014
But data from the final vote count provided by the General Elections Commission (KPU) showed that voter turnout failed to reach 70 percent, lower than the 75 percent voter turnout in the April 9 legislative election.
Political analyst Ramlan Surbakti of Airlangga University (Unair) said on Thursday that the drop in voter turnout was down to the short presidential campaign period. "Campaigning for the legislative election was much longer," said Ramlan, a former KPU deputy chairman.
Ramlan said the legislative campaign was more intense, with 100,000s of participants vying for seats in the House of Representatives, Provincial Legislative Councils (DPRD I) and the Regional Representatives Council (DPD). "They approached eligible voters door to door for almost a year," he said.
However, the presidential election featured a campaign period that lasted for only a month.
Ramlan said many voters who cast their ballots in the legislative election did away with the presidential election. He said those who chose to abstain in the presidential election were those who lived in rural areas and had no access to mass media.
He said these types of voters may have cast their ballots in the legislative election due to vote buying, which was more rampant than in the presidential election.
KPU chairman Husni Kamil Manik acknowledged that this year's presidential election saw less rural voters casting their ballots. "If we break down the turnover rate based on the regions, we see a higher number in cities, while in rural areas, the number is relatively low," he said.
KPU commissioner Sigit Pamungkas also attributed the lower-than-expected voter turnout to presidential campaign teams' inability to mobilize rural voters and get them to the polling stations.
"Most Indonesian voters live in rural areas. As they live in villages and given the limited capability of the presidential tickets, we saw a drop in voter turnout," he said.
Elections and Democracy Watchdog (Perludem) executive director Titi Anggraini said the presidential election could be seen as urban-centered election. He said people expected voter turnout to be high because of the surge in conversations on social media.
"Such conversations were perceived to represent the reality of the whole country, while in fact, most voters live in rural areas [with limited access to social media]," she said on Thursday.
Titi said the fact that there were only two tickets also meant that not all political aspirations could be accommodated. "Some voters may have thought their aspirations were not represented by the two tickets, so they opted not to vote," she said.
Titi also said smear campaigns had dissuaded people from voting. "Negative campaigns may have also caused people to feel fed up with the election," he said.
It was also unfortunate that the election day came in the middle of Ramadhan and when the soccer World Cup in Brazil reached its final match. "Some regions that saw a drop in voter turnout were mostly religious, but on election day people also probably just woke up late," she said.
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/07/25/voter-turnout-fails-meet-expectations.html.
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