#745 - 2009 Presidential Election

ENGLISH

After getting back from my mid year holiday to East Java last Tuesday, my life has been ordinary this week, haha... .

Last Wednesday, the presidential national election was held. For the first time, I had the right to voice my thought by choosing one candidate. Of course I executed my right, haha... . All of the candidates have been in the government in the past ten years. Of course none of them was perfect.

However, before I went voting, a thought tickled me. During the campaign days, all candidates (for sure) tried to get as much attention as possible, tried to win as many as possible people's votes. One thing was by giving (much more) care to the common people. One candidate paid all personal loan of a common people during the campaign (source: here, in Bahasa Indonesia). Even though that candidate denied it was a money politic, it's hard to judge. At least, by doing that, probably some more people would vote for that candidate because of the candidate's "kindness". Whichever it was (money politic or not), that candidate got the "benefit". That's one example. Probably many more similar things have happened. So, if the election could be extended to two rounds, much more "care" could probably be given to common people, thru their campaigns, LOL. Therefore, there was an option: not to pick the most favorite candidate so none candidate would exceed 50% of the votes.

Apparently, based on quick counts conducted by several bodies, one candidate got around 60% of all votes, which means it's likely that the election this time is gonnabe held only in one round. But we will see the official result in some time, haha (eventhough statistically quick count is effective enough, even more it was run by several independent bodies).

::: the ballot

::: my inked finger

BAHASA INDONESIA

Setelah pulang dari liburan tengah tahun ke Jawa Timur Selasa kemarin, hari2ku biasa2 saja, haha... .

Rabu kemarin, pemilihan umum presiden dilaksanakan. Untuk pertama kalinya, aku memiliki hak untuk menyuarakan pendapatku, haha... . Semua kandidat pernah terlibat di pemerintahan sepuluh tahun belakangan ini. Ya tentu saja tidak ada yang sempurna.

Namun, sebelum nyontreng, koq ada pikiran yang menggelitik yah. Selama masa kampanye, semua kandidat (jelas) berusaha mendapat perhatian sebanyak mungkin, berusaha memenangkan sebanyak mungkin suara rakyat. Satu cara adalah dengan memberikan perhatian (jauh lebih banyak) kepada rakyat. Seorang kandidat membayar keseluruhan hutang pribadi seorang rakyat pada saat kampanye. (sumber: disini). Walau kandidat itu menolak tindakan itu dikatakan sebagai politik uang, susah bilangnya kan. Setidaknya, dengan melakukan itu, mungkin saja sedikit lagi orang akan memilihnya karena "kebaikan" hatinya. Yang manapun yang benar (politik uang atau tidak), kandidat itu mendapatkan "keuntungan". Itu satu contoh. Mungkin ada banyak hal-hal serupa yang terjadi yah. Jadi, kalau pemilihan umumnya bisa diperpanjang sampai dua putaran, mungkin bisa lebih banyak "perhatian" yang tersalurkan ke masyarakat, melalui kampanye, LOL. Makanya, ada pilihan nih: tidak memilih kandidat yang favorit untuk menang sehingga tidak akan ada kandidat yang suaranya melebihi 50%.

Ternyata, berdasarkan hasil quick count yang dilaksanakan beberapa badan, satu kandidat mendapat suara sekitar 60%, yang berarti sepertinya pemilu presiden kali ini kemungkinan akan berlangsung dalam satu putaran saja. Namun, kita akan lihat deh hasil resminya beberapa waktu lagi, haha (walau secara statistik sih quick count itu cukup efektif, apalagi telah dilaksanakan oleh beberapa lembaga independen).