This morning, Indonesians gave their votes in the general election to elect members of the national Parliament(DPR), provincial (DPRD-I)& regional (DPRD-II) parliaments.
According to the General Election Commission (KPU) there are 171 million people who are eligible to vote i.e. 17 years old and above, registered in the permanent voter list (DPT). And the contestants consists of 38 political parties plus 6 additional local parties in the province of Aceh.
However, according to news media only around 60% of the registered voters came to the polls. Many said that the reason is because many people who are supposed to vote are not registered, and many who cannot vote e.g already dead or underage children, are registered as voters. The news media's allegation may have been right if I compare with my own experience in casting vote and also witnessing the counting of ballots in 3 voting places around my home in Kebayoran, South Jakarta, and 4 voting places around my parents' home in Bintaro, Banten. In those voting places, only around 40% of the registered voters show up at the polls. And the results in the 7 polls show that President SBY's Democratic Party won.
This result is the same as the preliminary result of voting Quick Count reported by several Election Survey institutions.
Although the said Quick Count result is still preliminary, however the news media and some politicians believe that they would not be very different compared to the actual result of counting by KPU.
In spite of the bad sides, there is one thing that made me and many Indonesians very happy i.e the fact that our country as the world's third largest democracy has successfully carried out the general election peacefully. And I am proud of it. God Bless Indonesia!
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