Overseas Indonesians Wooed by Polling Body
The government is urging Indonesians in New Zealand to vote next year. (Photo courtesy of the Indonesian Embassy in Wellington)
Indonesians living in New Zealand, four time zones away from eastern Indonesia time, will be the first to cast their votes in next year's elections, an official said over the weekend.
"There are approximately 3,500 Indonesian citizens in New Zealand who are prepared to cast their votes," Budi Putra, the head of the New Zealand office of Indonesia's Overseas Election Committee (PPLN), said in a statement from Wellington. "We have already registered them during the registration period."
Voting there will be organized by the Indonesian Embassy, with polling stations to be set up in Wellington and Auckland. "The voting stations will be open from 9 a.m. Those who live far from the polling stations can send their ballots in by mail," said PLE Priatna, the embassy's deputy chief of mission.
He added he was optimistic that the turnout among Indonesian voters in New Zealand would be high, saying the PPLN was working hard to promote the April 9 legislative election and the July 9 presidential ballot.
Indonesia's General Elections Commission (KPU) earlier in November said it expected to see increased participation by overseas voters, despite the logistical challenge faced by the various PPLN.
"The target is to have as many voters participate as possible. Domestically we're targeting voter turnout of 75 percent. Overseas, we hope to see 100 percent," KPU commissioner Sigit Pamungkas said on Nov. 15 as quoted by Tribunnews.com.
Sigit said the main problem would be to get all Indonesians living abroad to cast their vote on the same day, given that for many the dates would conflict with their regular working days. Polling day in Indonesia is typically a half-day holiday.
"If overseas voting is held during just one day, we expect participation to be low because people will find it hard to get time off from work to go and vote. So the challenge will be to get all the voters together on that one day," he said.
Sigit called on all PPLNs to ensure that they had an adequate number of polling stations set up in the countries they were covering. Under electoral law, overseas polling stations may cater to no more than 500 voters each. The KPU estimates there are some two million Indonesians overseas who are registered to vote. The biggest voting bloc is in Malaysia, with 401,000 Indonesians registered to cast a ballot, according to the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur.
The total represents a small fraction of the 186 million registered voters in the country, according to the official electoral roll. However, the KPU has come under fire for not being thorough about drawing up and verifying the list, with poll observers warning that the stated figure may be padded with up to 10 million "ghost," or nonexistent, voters. Similar problems with the electoral roll in the 2009 elections led to widespread allegations of ballot stuffing and vote fraud in the legislative and presidential polls.
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