Jakarta – Youths become agents of the 2024 election so that this grand event is of higher quality. They are fully committed to supporting the election, by giving their right to vote (not abstaining) and campaigning for all Indonesian citizens aged 17 and over to vote. Elections must be successful and youth must care and participate.
The youth are the hope of the nation because they are future leaders. Youth have higher energy, thinking, and creativity, so they are suitable to be used as a driving force for government programs. With expertise in using technology, youth use it for positive things.
Young people are also required to become agents for the 2024 election so that this event is successful and of good quality. Secretary to Members of the Presidential Advisory Council of the Republic of Indonesia (Wantimpres RI), Jan Prince Permata stated that democracy, including general elections, will have good quality if it has strong legitimacy born from people’s political participation.
Jan Prince added, in the context of Indonesian democracy today, youth have an important and strategic role in determining whether or not the quality of elections is high or low. He cited data presented by the General Election Commission (KPU) that 52 percent or 106.36 million voters in the 2024 election were under 40 years old. Therefore we can conclude that the quality of the 2024 elections cannot be separated from youth involvement.
In that sense, youth are obliged to support the success of the 2024 Election and maintain its quality by being involved in this program every 5 years. They are obliged to give their right to vote because they are 17 years of age and over.
Young people are also advised not to abstain from abstaining from voting (white group), aka not giving their right to vote. Elections are only once every 5 years and must be followed. If youths abstain, they will waste the opportunity and could derail the 2024 elections.
Abstentions are not a solution to improve the fate of the nation. The reason is because if the youth do not exercise their right to vote, then the future of Indonesia is at stake. There will be many empty ballots because the majority of people decide to abstain from voting because they are skeptical about the condition of the country, are jealous of the government, are angry with officials, etc.
If there are many empty ballots, it will be detrimental because there is the potential for misuse by unscrupulous persons. The ballot could have been pierced with a nail or crossed out with a ballpoint pen, then fraud occurred. The party that was elected was not 100% of the people’s choice, but was the fruit of the crimes of the elements on duty at the TPS.
Meanwhile, Bawaslu Chair Rahmat Bagja stated that youths can maintain neutrality in the situation in society in the 2024 election and simultaneous election stages, especially from conflicts or divisions in society. The youths can neutralize the situation. When there are circumstances that encourage division, hope that it can be controlled and mitigated by the youth.
In that sense, young people are expected to participate in elections. Not only by coming and voting during the election. But also to prevent divisions, both during the campaign period and after the election.
Currently, elections are very prone to divisions because there are parties who are too fanatical in supporting presidential candidates or their legislative candidates. When he is too blindly in love he curses other candidates and riots during elections. The youths are expected to help prevent divisions by reconciling the two warring parties.
The youth have energy and brilliant minds. They act when there are enemies and think of ways to prevent divisions during elections. This can be done by campaigning again for fair (honest and fair) and LUBER (direct, public, free and secret) elections.
In this era of openness, it seems that all secrets can disappear. Therefore LUBER must be socialized again, especially on secret points. The people were asked not to disclose who the presidential or legislative candidates they support. The reason is because there could be attacks from provocateurs or other people who are sympathizers of different presidential candidates.
Bagja also asked all youth to continue to maintain the principle of a unitary state. This is because elections are actually a process of maintaining the four pillars of the nation and state. He invited youth and to be active in preventing the spread of fake news and the politicization of SARA (ethnic, religious, racial and intergroup). In the future there will be empowering participatory monitoring functions and educating the public to be digital literate.
In that sense, young people can play a big role in creating peaceful elections. They can educate the public to be more careful in reading news in online newspapers or social media. Don’t fall for hoaxes and propaganda, then there will be divisions because of the fake news.
Youth are agents of change and they are tasked with making the 2024 elections successful and maintaining their quality. This is done by not abstaining from voting and continuing to vote on election day. The youths also prevented chaos in society by dispelling hoaxes and propaganda about elections.
