The government is optimal in protecting people’s voting rights ahead of the 2024 regional elections
By: Rizky Pratama )*
The government continues to ensure that regional head elections (Pilkada) can be participated in by all parties. Therefore, the Government is optimally encouraging all election organizers and related agencies to continue to improve technical obstacles ahead of this big event so that the people’s right to vote can be channeled.
The reason is that the right to vote is indeed a form of self-expression for every Indonesian citizen, which is part of every human’s human rights (HAM) which of course must receive support and recognition by any party, including the government.
Moreover, in the implementation of the 2024 Regional Head Election (Pilkada), it is very important to make efforts to respect the existence of the rights of every individual without exception, namely by protecting the community’s right to vote.
Election and Democracy Observer, Supriadi Lawani believes that so far there are still several obstacles in the implementation of every democratic party in Indonesia, one of which is that there are still citizens who actually qualify as voters because they have the right to vote, but cannot cast their votes because of some technical obstacles.
Some of the technical obstacles that often arise, causing people to be unable to exercise their right to vote, are usually administrative in nature. Therefore, the government guarantees that every citizen can cast their vote in every political contest, including the 2024 regional elections.
This is because the right to vote is also a human right (HAM) that is completely inseparable from one another. Its existence is given by the state to citizens with certain conditions in General Elections (Pemilu), for example in Law (UU) Number 7 of 2017 concerning Elections Article 198 Paragraph (1) which states that at least people begin to have the right to vote after they have completed their education. 17 years old.
The recognition and protection of human rights (HAM) is one of the principles of a democratic legal state, including in Indonesia. So it has become a necessity to include articles regarding human rights in the country’s constitution.
The right to vote in regional elections is a constitutional right of citizens. Moreover, Article 28D Paragraph (1) of the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia requires that recognition, guarantees, protection and fair legal certainty are the rights of every person.
Meanwhile, in the 2024 Simultaneous Regional Elections, the Indonesian Government through the Minister of Communication and Information (Menkominfo) Budi Arie Setiadi continues to appeal to all people to come directly to the Polling Place (TPS) and exercise their right to vote.
Soon, the momentum for the 2024 regional elections will occur, which the community should take advantage of very well in order to determine the future leaders of their respective regions.
In a country that adheres to democratic principles such as Indonesia, the people clearly have the right to determine who their regional leader candidate will be according to the wishes of their own conscience.
Therefore, the community should also be intelligent voters, by only choosing the best candidates or potential leaders in accordance with the hopes and desires of the residents to be able to advance and further develop their region.
As one of the government’s efforts to ensure that the 2024 regional elections run smoothly, the Minister of Communication and Information emphasized how important it is to continue to work together to protect the digital space from the spread of hoax information, disinformation, slander, hate speech and other misleading information.
Former Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court (MK), Hamdan Zoelva emphasized that the right to vote is a human right of every Indonesian citizen. The reason is that its existence is guaranteed in the constitution.
The constitutional right of citizens to choose and be elected (right to vote and right to be a candidate) is a right that has been guaranteed by the constitution, law or even international conversion.
So, if there is any action that is indicated to be limiting, then deviation, elimination and elimination of that right constitutes a violation of the human rights of citizens.
In fact, specifically, Law (UU) Number 30 of 1999 concerning Human Rights (HAM) regulates the right to vote as stated in Article 43 which explains that every citizen has the right to be elected and vote in elections including regional elections based on the right through free and fair voting.
The 1945 Constitution even emphasizes that sovereignty is in the hands of the people. From these provisions, the people have sovereignty, responsibility, rights and obligations to democratically elect leaders who will administer the government to manage and serve all levels of society, as well as elect people’s representatives to oversee the running of the government.
All these regulations then very clearly show how the government really upholds Human Rights (HAM) in the 2024 Regional Head Election (Pilkada), namely by protecting all the voting rights of the people of the country.
)* The author is a contributor to the Persada Institute
