Partyforumseasia: This page will try to collect information on how the Indonesian political parties compete in this year’s elections. We will look into their strategies, assess and rate them. During the long timeline until the inauguration for the new president on October 20th new material will be added. Comments and contributions are most welcome!

16 March 2014:  Start of Campaigning

Indonesia is a highly complex country in terms of geography, ethnic and religious diversity, as well as unequal economic and social development. This complexity is reflected in the complicated organization of its democratic process. But who says that democracy is easy to organize?

Partyforumseasia will add materials and assessments to this page until October with the aim to contribute to the understanding of how Indonesian political parties cope with this challenge. We start with the situation at the official beginning of the election campaign today, 16 March 2014:
The chart (all in: Straits Times, Singapore, 15 March 2014) shows the concentration of population, voters and parliamentary seats in West Java. With a population of 46 million West Java alone is close to the bigger countries in Europe.

The number of voters alone is a logistical challenge of sorts, for the election commission as well  as for the parties.

Possible front runner for this year seems to be the PDI-P with the very “bullish” party logo.
The outgoing President’s Democratic Party was steadily declining in the polls over the last year, tarnished by many high profile corruption scandals.

The declining voter turnout will be an important issue for this year’s elections, though 71% are still way above comparable results in Western democracies…
The hopes for a cleaner government pinned very much on PDI-P presidential candidate Joko Widodo may inspire many voters and increase the 2014 voter turnout.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Added on 17 March 2014:

Indonesia: The 12 Competing Parties

Posted on March 17, 2014