CIDISS. South Sumatera Electoral Commission (KPU) targets voter participation to increase in the 2018 regional head elections. Various ways have been made to attract potential voters so that they are willing to vote on a predetermined date. The local KPU targets voter numbers in the 80% range to be achieved.
In fact, the KPU notes that voter participation in South Sumatra is still low and even tends to decline. In the 2009 legislative elections, only 72% of voting rights owners voted. Although the number increased to 76.49% in the 2014 legislative election, but in the presidential election, the number decreased to only 71%. Worse, in the election of the Governor and Vice Governor of South Sumatra, voter participation again declined to only 63%. This is quite disturbing because a number of ways of socialization has been done by the organizers. In addition to socialization through social media, the KPU also conducted socialization to the campus regarding the importance of voter participation in the democratic process in order to attract voters from the students.
Not only that, the Ministry of Home Affairs has even directed the heads of regions and devices to increase voter participation in their region. A number of ways have been done, such as technical socialization, improved access to polling stations, socialization through print and electronic media, to the application of holidays on the date of voting.
Nevertheless, the participation of voters in the elections can not be separated from whether or not the candidates are competing. Therefore, it is expected that all candidates who follow elections Serentak 2018 in South Sumatra can compete well and describe a good work program so that voters are interested to participate and cast into local polling stations.
By: Mirwan Achmad *)