Protest voters, young voters vie for public support

JAKARTA: Over the weekend, only days before the elections, some of the country’s youth staged rallies to encourage people to vote while protest voters, who are calling themselves “golput”, stepped up their criticism against the current political system and reiterated their intention to not vote for any politician.

People associated with the golput movement have reiterated that abstention is a legitimate form of protest against the government, while young voters in Medan, North Sumatra, and Semarang, Central Java, have publicly denounced the act of non-voting.

Saya Golput (I Vote None) – a group that has been at the forefront of the protest movement in recent weeks – published a manifesto on Friday titled “Memilih Untuk Tidak Memilih” (“Vote Not to Vote”).

“Legislative candidates were picked by their respective parties, without involvement from the public.

“Presidential and vice-presidential candidates were also nominated without feedback from the public. People are forced to vote; we do not have any authority over our decision. The 2019 elections are not the people’s elections,” the group wrote on its official Medium page.

Saya Golput recently came under fire online as netizens considered views espoused by the movement to be disruptive to the elections and the country’s democracy in general.

A poll by Indikator Politik Indonesia in January shows that even though the abstention rate is high – about 30% – only 1.1% of 1,200 respondents said they would not vote for either candidate pair.

In a last-ditch effort to counteract the rising golput movement, university students from the Indonesian Law Students Association staged a public protest denouncing abstention and money politics at Medan Merdeka Square in Medan on Sunday. — The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network