Non-voting is no problem for govt: Analysts

JAKARTA (JP): The government need not worry about people abstaining from voting tomorrow because it is common in democracies, two political analysts said yesterday.

J. Kristiadi of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) was quoted by Antara as saying: "In Indonesia, where the political system adheres to Pancasila Democracy, the Golput (non-voter) phenomenon is something the government should not fear.

"Also, the government has explicitly reiterated that people's participation in the election is a right, not an obligation."

Deputy chairman of the National Commission on Human Rights, Marzuki Darusman, said non-voters were common in democracies.

"It's only that the government has been overwhelmed with its duty to make the general election a success, in which a criteria of success is the number of people using their voting rights," Marzuki said.

Public debate on non-voting has intensified since the ousted leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), Megawati Soekarnoputri, declared last week she would keep her yellow registration card and abstain from voting. Many analysts believe this will increase the Golput vote this year.

Golput, an acronym for Golongan Putih (White Group), refers to people who avoid polling booths or spoil their ballot papers to protest the political system.

Megawati's supporters in Salatiga, Banyumas, Kebumen, Purworejo, Cilacap and Purbalingga in Central Java have declared they will follow her example.

Nine youth and student organizations and pro-Megawati activists in Surabaya announced yesterday they would not vote because the government had designed the election to maintain the status quo.

The organizations include the Nationalist Student Movement's Surabaya chapter, the Teachers' Training and Education Institute's senate and the Christian Students' Movement.

Under the Indonesian laws, voting is not obligatory but instigating people into boycotting a general election is liable to prosecution.

The government has repeatedly urged eligible citizens to vote otherwise they would spoil their basic political rights.

Kristiadi said that Golput had never exceeded 10 percent of the vote.

"Say, this year's Golput reaches 15 percent, what could they do?" he said, comparing it to the percentage of non-voters in the United States that could reach between 40 percent and 50 percent.

In a "political power context,", Kristiadi said, non-voters meant nothing to the New Order government that has been ruling for more than 30 years.

But Kristiadi said the government should be wary of non-voting if it reflected growing discontent on its "blatant deviations".

He said non-voting was no longer an urban phenomenon because rural people had slowly been learning about politics and non- voting.

"It's just that there have been no guarantees that their knowledge of Golput will make them practice it, because there's still a kind of mass fear in the air," he said. (aan/wah/nur)