Wednesday, July 23, 2014

The End of the Most Interesting Presidential Election of Indonesia

Last night the Indonesian General Election Committee finally announced the winning presidential candidate. The good guy won :) he got 53% while the bad guy got 47%. So glad he won :)

Not only this election was the tightest one we've ever had, this election period was also the most interesting one. Only this time, I spent my lunch breaks checking kompas.com and detik.com. Only this time I googled both candidates trying to find how the world viewed both of them. Usually not interested in news, especially politics, this presidential election surely changed me.

Since last time I blogged, which was the day of the election, so many things have happened. Ridiculous, funny and embarrassing thing I have to say. Straight after the quick count started, both parties claimed victory. My reaction was "What the.... ". Where else in the world in could happen? Nowhere else but Indonesia :) the bad guy knelt down to the ground to praise the lord for winning the election. The good guy simply announced he won the election. Honestly I didn't get why the good guy did it. He's been reasonable so far. While the bad guy has always been weird, so it's no wonder. A friend told me that the good guy had to declare winning too in order to force the General Election Committee to do their job and not be biased towards the other party. But anyway it was an embarrassing moment for Indonesia and it made it to the Australian news soon after.

Then after that, the bad guy kept saying he was winning (eventhough around 10 of quick count institutions results showed otherwise). When people pointed out that the quick count showed the good guy was winning, he said not to believe in quick count results and just be patient to wait for the real count.

Not only that, he even had BBC News interview... *sigh.. now that is real embarrassment -_-" If you watch it, you can see how his real characters are. He was impolite, rude and emotional. I can only thank god he didn't win, and that the anchor lady was very professional to handle the interview. Else, it would be the most watched video on YouTube.

In the interview, he was asked questions in regards to the election. Many institutions show results that you are losing, what do you say? He claimed that he could bring forward more than 10 quick count results that show he was leading, and that those who show the good guy winning were commercial institutions and paid to report those results by the good guy. Now now.... If I were one of those institutions, I would sue him for spreading false rumor and defamation. Imagine 10 institutions suing him, he would have to pay out so much money to them.

He also said that the good guy was not a real good, humble, down to earth or people person. He claimed that the good guy was just made, a part of grand design to win the election. Well helloooo even if it was a grand design, he did more work than you. He's been working in Jakarta for around 2years only, but how come I saw more results than you who's supposed to be working since like maybe 20-30 years ago? If it was a grand design, I still want to applaud the good guy for what he did.

And lastly, when asked what would he do if he lost? He replied "what? i'm confident I'm winning. But if Indonesian people don't want me, I can go back to my old life. I have a good life! It's actually a quiet life away from politics. But I'm confident I'm winning." 

That point has been said by him a numerous times. He also made a point that he indeed had made similar statement so many times, while the good guy only said it ONCE. He said he would accept whatever result Election Committee gives. He would respect it. 

You know what? A day or 2 before the announcement, he asked the Election Committee to withhold the counting because there are so many frauds and abnormalities surrounding the election process. That he's been cheated. Man... It is getting interesting...

The general election committee ignored his request lol Well that's the right thing to do, they didn't give any evidence. Only saying they would provide the evidences soon. Now keep that so called "evidence" in your mind. I will get back to you on that one.

On the official announcement day, all the results showed the good guy was winning. The good thing about Indonesian quick count it, it's usually accurate. There is only 1% chance of difference with the real count. Hours before the announcement, he declared that he's not going to accept the results as they feel like they've been cheated. And decided to walk out of the election. What the....

Now now let's recap. Who declared himself winning even when all results showed otherwise? The bad guy. Who said he was winning when most quick count institutions said he wasn't? Who said he was still leading when real count showed he was losing when 90%+ of the votes had been counted? Who said he was confident even until 2 days before the announcement? The bad guy. Who said on BBC he was confident of winning and even if losing, he would accept it? The bad guy. Then who is that guy saying he's been cheated and would not accept the results??? He even had the face to walk out of it -_-

After he declared he was leaving the election and would not accept the results, there were confusions on whether he meant withdrawing himself as one of the candidates or just leaving that place. However, short after that he said that he would not appeal to Consitutional Court as he already withdrew, but instead would try other legal way. Then yesterday, 2 days after the announcement, he stated that he was going to appeal to Consitutional Court. How inconsistent! And his campaign team stated that he didn't withdraw from the election, but simply withdrew from the counting process -.- Yeah right. I think that's what they decided to say after they realised that there is a point in constitution that stated that presidential candidates cannot withdraw between the time they were officially confirmed as candidates until the end of the voting process. Withdrawal means jail for 2-5 years and a fine of 25-50 billion rupiah (AUD25-50 million).

And to make it even more funnier, yesterday they claimed that South Korean and Chinese hackers were involved in making the good guy win -_- the counting was done manually, and the results were scanned. Which part of it can hackers manipulate?? 

Then later yesterday, he or his team appeared on the news saying to world to hold congratulatory greetings to the good guy as there were so many discrepancies and frauds, and that all has not finished yet -_- duh malu dehhhhhh -.-

And the latest news is...... *drumroll* the bad guy had lodged a report to the police that ALL the evidence that proves the frauds, manipulation, and whatever he's been claiming all this time HAD BEEN STOLEN!!!

It can't get any better... *gelenk2* I think I would still be following indo news for many months to come -.- ugh... My data >_<

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Today is Indonesian Presidential Election Day!!

This time's election is really interesting. A lot of people take it seriously. Most of them know exactly who they want to vote for and for what reason. Well it's not surprising, considering we have 2 exact opposite candidates.

To summarize is quickly, the first one is the bad guy with track record of human rights violations. Just like most thinga related to Indonesian politics, there's no solid proof that he was really involved, but he's the main suspect and USA even banned him into coming to USA.

The 2nd guy is the good guy. To the people who hate him, this guy is ugly looking village guy who doesn't have a president charisma. To those who hate him, they believe if he becomes president, he would be a disgrace to Indonesia in front the world. However, to his believers, he's the only hope to Indonesia. They believe only with him, Indonesia can move forward. He's the people person who doesn't mind to sit within commoners, doesn't care who's at the top and who's at the bottom and still serves anyone below him. To them, he's the only leader who actually does some work instead of just saying bullshits.

IMO, Indonesian are not nationalists. We don't usually care about voting for election. If it's convenient, we would vote. If it's troublesome, don't bother. That's the spirit usually. However, it's different this time. During the campaign, people actively shared articles both to make their choice looks good, and to smash the opponent, and they also bravely shared their own opinions (which of course got a lot of comments and sometimes caused them fighting on their facebook wall). I myself had to unfollow some friends due to them spamming my newsfeed.

Last Saturday was the time for us who live overseas to cast our vote. I personally haven't yet since I registered to cast my vote via post, but until today haven't received my paper. I called and texted the overseas election committee, they said I would get it this week, but what caught me was, they said they received 200 calls asking about it! I'm pretty sure handling election was an easy-peasy to them in the past, well not this time :)

But at the election places, wow man... The queue at Masonic Center Sydney was like queueing for the new iPhone @_@ my friend and his wife queued had to come back due to the line was so long, and even after they came back, they still had to queue for an hour to cast their vote. My auntie and cuz queued twice, and still didn't qualified, but they didn't mind coming back and queue again. A few of my friends casted their votes for the very first time this year, eventhough they were already eligible to do so since 12 years ago. Food vendors at Melbourne election area sold out all their food. And Hong Kong couldn't finish their election due to the high number of voters and the voters were very upset and disappointed for not being able to vote after hours and hours of queuing under scorching Hong Kong sun. They even suggested to move and continue the election at the embassy though it wasn't agreed by the committee who wanted to go home -_-

Indonesia is really making history this year. Thanks to those 2 candidates, a lot of people now want to have their votes counted and make sure the the other candidate doesn't become the President of Indonesia. I googled yesterday, and found all about Indonesian election at news.com.au, britainnews, and so on.

Well today is the time for people living in Indonesia to cast their vote. Hopefully all goes well, and may the best candidate win. Our overseas votes only count towards 2% of the whole Indonesian citizens, but see how we have tried :)

 So help us God.