Politicians blamed for poor voter turnout

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The disappointment of Jakarta residents with the performance of the country's politicians is the main reason why many people were unenthusiastic about the April 5 legislative elections, say analysts.

Syamsuddin Haris, a political analyst from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said on Wednesday that Jakarta people were revolted by the unscrupulous attitudes displayed by politicians.

"The disappointment of Jakarta people with the politicians is the main reason for the low turnout in the elections. Media reports (on the conduct of politicians) have played an important role in molding people's attitudes," Syamsuddin told The Jakarta Post.

According to the Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPU Jakarta), there were 6,478,005 eligible voters in the city, but only 4,542,726 of them bothered to vote. In other words, nearly two million people, or one third of the eligible voters, did not exercise their right to vote.

In 1999, less than 10 percent of the voters in the city failed to cast their votes.

Syamsuddin said that as the most well-informed people in the country, Jakarta residents were more independent about deciding whether or not to use their right to vote.

He said he was not surprised by the low level of participation by Jakarta people in the elections as this had been indicated by a lackluster election campaign.

A similar comment came from Rachmad Prakoso of the Institute for Policy and Community Development Studies (IPCOS), who said that Jakarta residents, particularly those with good educations, understood that they had the right to vote or not to vote as they saw fit.

"They are more independent in showing their political attitudes," he told the Post, adding that the decrease in the number of voters was nothing out of the ordinary, particularly in a big city like Jakarta.

The situation would be different if such a decrease occurred in a rural area where the population mostly still thought that voting was obligatory, he added.

He mentioned three groups of Jakarta residents who had not voted. First, those who really did not want to vote; second, those who had not been registered as voters, and third, migrants who cast their votes in their hometowns.

Meanwhile, Imam B. Prasodjo, a sociologist from the University of Indonesia (UI), said there were two main groups of Jakarta residents who did not vote even though they had the opportunity to do so.

First, there were those who were thoroughly frustrated by the situation and who no longer believed in the promises of politicians. Imam said the number of such people was significant.

And second, those who did not see the significance of the legislative institutions, particularly the House of Representatives and the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), which were set to lose their roles in electing the president and the vice president.

"I believe the level of public participation will be different during the upcoming presidential election," he added.

Both Syamsuddin and Imam, however, said that the low voter turnout in the legislative elections should not be viewed as a negative phenomenon as it actually served to indicate growing political maturity on the part of the electorate.

Imam said that during the New Order era, around 99 percent of eligible voters took part in elections -- not because they wanted to vote but rather because they were forced to do so.