By: Elita Simorangkir *
Various party flag banners, billboards and campaign stickers have been taken down. Tension tension should also begin to subside until later awaiting results from the KPU. But in fact the claim of victory based on the quick count still left a residue of political ambition. Not only in Indonesia, wherever the election will raise political tension within each country. Not infrequently the elections that are expected to give birth to the people’s elected leaders end in chaos. Like the State of Myanmar where chaos and even military coups occurred in the 1990s, so elections became redundant, such phenomena generally did not have a mature or immature democratic system in their constitutional system.
Since the revival of the Reformation succeeded in eliminating the New Order period, Indonesia has held elections as many as 5 times and all have gone well, orderly and smoothly. Even the international world has also recognized the democratic system in Indonesia as mature. Naturally, Indonesia is the third largest democracy in the world after India and America.
This is a magnet for other countries who want to study in Indonesia to observe the implementation of elections that run smoothly, orderly and the community participation rate in the implementation of elections in Indonesia is able to penetrate more than 76%. It is indeed a high number compared to other countries, including developed countries, whose election participation is around 60%.
But basically the most important is not the implementation of the election, but the situation after voting in the polling station. Of course it’s natural if every contestant has hopes of winning or getting a high vote. Of course there are those who are ready to win but are not ready to lose by making provocative nuances. Those who are not ready to lose will sue, and the worst is to consider fraud in the election so that they do not accept the results of the vote count conducted by the General Election Commission (KPU).
The opinion of the KPU was fraudulent and was also compounded by some supporters who wanted a repeat election with the threat of carrying out massive deployments. Even though he already knew about the mechanism for channeling dissatisfaction through the mechanism established by Bawaslu, which would then recommend to the KPU or to judicial institutions such as the Constitutional Court or other judicial institutions. This certainly has consequences, that whatever is decided by the Constitutional Court must be accepted openly, because there is no other mechanism, let alone something that leads to anarchism. Obviously this is against the law.
Indonesia is a nation that has grown up in living a democracy. Evidenced by the elections conducted by the KPU in realizing the Pancasila democratic system. As Indonesians, of course we should be grateful that the simultaneous elections run relatively safe and peaceful. Although there is no doubt that there are technical obstacles such as the delay in logistics to reach remote areas in Indonesia.
With the end of the simultaneous election on April 17, it is hoped that it will be able to re-unite all the differences that have tapered during the campaign period. This sense of unity can be started by inviting friends to have a casual chat or coffee together without discussing sentiments about politics. Of course it would be wiser if for the losing supporters to congratulate on social media, without including tags that are not worth reading, of course we must ask ourselves, should I despise or demean friends who are champions in the presidential election.
For supporters whose champion wins in elections, both legislative elections and presidential elections, they should not provoke or heat up until a status war arises through social media. It would be even better if the losing party was also invited to be involved in nation building. Because in essence elections are not to create division, elections are a manifestation of the application of Pancasila ideological values, where in its implementation it must not forget the element of Indonesian unity.
So that it needs maturity to think and behave to respond to the results of the implementation of elections, losing is certainly normal, the most important is the attitude of mutual acceptance and mutual support without that attitude so that unity will be difficult to be knit back. Let’s greet our old friend, invite them to have a coffee together.
- The author is a Social Media Activist