48 Hours before the Vote

Posted by John
As Americans celebrated independence on Saturday, Indonesians were treated to another familiar civic ritual — the barrage of last-minute election advertisements. Streets were plastered with signs and flags proclaiming the virtues of the three candidates: incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY); vice president Jusuf Kalla, running against his boss; and former president Megawati Sukarnoputri, who wants her old job back.

During the Saturday evening news broadcast, more than 80 percent of the ads were campaign commercials. By now, Danielle sings along with refrains she knows by heart, and Indonesians who’ve been subjected to a month of campaign mottos can probably tell you in their sleep that Kalla stands for “better and faster” government, Megawati is “for the people,” and SBY intends to lead the people “Forward!”

The most frequently aired advertisement features hundreds of SBY supporters in color-coordinated outfits carrying similarly color-coordinated flags to the top of a verdant mountain where a huge red-and-white Indonesian flag sways majestically in the wind. There’s nothing about SBY’s agenda, just a dose of stirring nationalism, impressive choreography and reminder that SBY is number two on the ballot. You can probably afford this kind of celebratory strategy when you have a 40-point lead in the polls. (I’ve searched for this and other ads on YouTube, but no luck so far.)

Meanwhile, in a country where close to 90 percent of the voters are Muslims, the Kalla campaign has sought to capitalize on the fact that neither SBY’s wife nor the wife of his running-mate wear jilbabs (head scarves). Both Kalla’s wife and his running mate’s wife wear them. Kalla draws attention to this bit of symbolic politics because the major Islamic parties are supporting SBY’s coalition, and this jilbab issue might lure some voters away from the president.

Kalla billboard ads regarding headscarves (see sample above, from the New York Times) are the first ads I’ve seen where candidates’ wives are featured more prominently than the candidates themselves. We saw one ad bearing the words “Insya Allah” (Allah willing) above the wives’ heads, further driving home the point. Another Kalla ad stresses his outsider status—from Sulawesi, he would be the first non-Javanese Indonesian elected to the presidency. None of these ads appear to be gaining traction, as Kalla is mired in third place in most polls.

Megawati seems the most willing to engage in critical campaigning. In a more combative style most Americans would recognize, her ads outline promises that SBY made but did not fulfill during his five-year term. One ad features some wretchedly melodramatic acting, where a boy celebrates after hearing a radio broadcast promising free elementary school education. His parents embrace him and regretfully inform him he can’t believe everything politicians say. It turns out they won’t be able to send him to school because they would still have to pay hidden school fees. Of course, voters’ disappointment with Megawati’s own inability to deliver on her promises as president from 2001 to 2004 hurts her credibility on this front.

The preponderance of political ads in the streets and on the airwaves reached a saturation point all last week. Come Sunday morning, however, all the flags and signs came down. TV broadcasts returned to normal, punctuated by commercials for coffee and cell phones rather than 60-second candidate biographies. In turns out that Indonesia has campaign rules that strictly prohibit political messages in the final three days before the polls open. Accustomed to American campaigns where supporters wave signs on street corners until the polls close on Election Night, it will be strange to travel down the home stretch in relative silence.

It’s not clear these ads were having an impact, anyway. SBY, the wildly popular incumbent, has consistently polled well above 50 percent, in some cases as high as 70 percent. There remains a slim chance that Kalla and Megawati will earn enough votes to force SBY below the 50 percent mark and into a September runoff. But all signs point to SBY winning in a landslide, as his re-election campaign takes on more of the feel of a coronation.

Even though the election will not be competitive, Indonesians will vote at a very high rate. The turnout in three national elections from 1999 to 2004 was over 75 percent of eligible voters in each instance, including 93 percent in the first post-Suharto election of 1999. Compare that to the United States, where about 60 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot in last year’s closely contested presidential election. Social pressures to vote were very strong in Indonesia during the authoritarian Suharto era, even though election results were essentially meaningless since Suharto controlled who could run. Still, Indonesians developed the voting habit, and will go to the polls in droves on Wednesday.

Yet Indonesian voters’ motivations can prove elusive. More than a third of Danielle’s interview subjects said they did not know what “democracy” meant, only knowing it as a word in the name of SBY’s political party (“Partai Demokrat”). Voters identify much more closely with political personalities than parties, and parties do little to distinguish themselves ideologically through platforms or policies. In addition, the presence of patronage and “money politics” persists, factoring in voters’ decisions to an unverifiable extent. Everyone acknowledges that parties still buy votes with food and gifts in the post-Suharto era, but of course no one owns up to doing it themselves.

Even with Indonesians’ high rates of political participation, new forms of disenfranchisement have crept into the political process this year. Shockingly, an estimated 40 million voters were unable to vote April’s parliamentary election, mostly because the Central Election Commission (KPU) had not properly updated its electoral rolls. Indonesians don’t have to register, but the KPU was more lax about updating its lists this year than in previous elections. The commission has since run numerous advertisements exhorting Indonesians to check with local KPU offices to ensure that they haven’t been left off the list. It’s unlikely, however, that the voting rolls will be completely fixed before this week’s presidential vote.

In addition, the KPU has introduced some confusing procedural changes in 2009. For the first time in more than 50 years, Indonesians are supposed to mark their intent to vote by putting a check next to their candidate of choice rather than using a punch card ballot. Much confusion ensued in the April parliamentary election, with the KPU invalidating 14 percent of votes because of improper marks or other irregularities. (The average ballot invalidation rate in most elections is about 3 percent internationally.) With more than 1 in 10 voters disqualified on these kinds of technicalities, Florida’s butterfly ballot seems like the model of rectitude in comparison.

International election organizations like IFES have worked with the Indonesian officials to address this issue, encouraging the KPU to take a broader approach in honoring voters’ intent. They’ve gotten the KPU to accept X marks as well as the officially preferred check marks, for instance, but there’s still some disagreement about what counts as a vote. There are no signs that these invalidations have benefited one party or candidate, but they don’t inspire trust among Indonesians learning to live in a 10-year old democracy.

Still, Indonesia will have a proud moment on the international stage on Thursday morning, as wire services run stories confirming SBY’s victory in “Indonesia, a democracy with 240 million people and the world’s largest Muslim-majority country.” Then the world will mostly go on forgetting about Indonesia until something drastic happens.

With his broad mandate, SBY may be able to continue his progress toward making free public education available to all students, combating corruption at the heart of Indonesian politics and business, and spreading the benefits of economic growth to the broader Indonesian population. That is, of course, he stays true to his campaign motto of “Forward!”