World’s Third Largest Democracy in Elections

Indonesia the world’s third largest democracy is currently mired in election controversy as both candidates of the nation’s recent Presidential election which took place on July 9th, 2014 have refused to concede and both have claimed victory. Jakarta’s Governor Joko Widodo and former army general Prabowo Subianto have been separated by only 6 points in the first round of voting ( 53% to 47%) in favor of Mr. Widodo, however both sides have claimed voting fraud and have agreed to a recount in which the results will not be available until July 20th.

More than 130 million voters voted in the archipelago’s second election since 1998 when the country officially became a democracy after the change over from an authoritarian form of government to a democracy. “I really appreciate what you have done”, Mr. Widodo said. Myself and Jusuf Kalla (Widodo’s vice President) can’t give you anything in return except thank you very much.” Mr. Widodo said to supporters at a recent rally.

The recount vote on this archipelago nation is going to be a difficult process as there are 6,000 polling places throughout the island nation that need to be recounted to verify the results. As the vote recount process start turning in, there have been already allegations of fraud leveled by both candidate’s parties, however people involved in the recount have seen otherwise, “The tabulation process is transparent. At the polling stations we were allowed to see the C1 tabulation form and observe the recapitulation process at the sub district and now the city level. So far I haven’t seen any voting irregularities here”, Talim Haryanto, a Depok resident said in referencing the voting recount.

Concerns have also been raised about the former General Subianto’s refusal to concede the race even though he is only down 6 in the early vote count, but the fear comes because of his military background and the concern that he could potentially destabilize the democratic process and return the country back to an authoritarian form of government.

“There are rumors all over the place” Eva Kusma Sundori said who is Mr. Widodo’s campaign spokeswoman. She went onto say “It is really clear they are trying to push up their numbers in their own territories.” A statement referencing the fear of ex General Subianto vote rigging the election.

“The General elections commission oversaw the dismal of election committee members who were found or suspected of vote tampering by the election committee council”, Nelson Simanjuntak who is part of the general election monitoring board of Indonesia.

Only time will tell if the world’s third largest will continue on its process toward an open democratic form of government or if it will slide back to its authoritarian form of government that ruled the country until 1998.