Denpasar –
Voter participation in the 2024 regional elections in Bali did not reach the target of 75 percent. The quality of candidate pairs (paslon) is one of the causes of low voter participation.
“For this regional election there are several factors (low participation), but the most dominant is the quality of the candidate pairs,” said political observer from the National Education University (Undiknas) I Nyoman Subanda to detikBali, Thursday (5/12/2024).
According to him, the candidate pairs did not get a good response from the community. Meanwhile, incumbent candidate pairs at both provincial and regional levels are overshadowed by public dissatisfaction.
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“Meanwhile, new entrants have not been able to convince voters that they are an alternative to replace the incumbent,” explained the lecturer at the Undiknas Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (FISIP).
Subanda said that this should be the responsibility of the party which does not provide candidates who have high electability and are accepted by the public.
“I saw that at the last second they were just deciding on their candidate pairs, whether incumbent or newcomer. This means there aren’t many opportunities to socialize their candidate pairs,” said Subanda.
As a result, candidate pairs cannot maximize their momentum to be recognized more deeply by the public. In fact, he continued, the character of the Balinese people is nationalist, not ideological. If people choose to abstain from voting, they will respect government policy.
“So there are no ideological abstentions, I see a tendency for participation to decline because of politics, politics because of candidate pairs,” said Subanda.
Previously, the Bali General Election Commission (KPU) revealed that voter participation during the 2024 regional elections did not reach the target, only 71.9 percent. The Bali KPU previously targeted voter participation to reach 75 percent. The lowest participation was in Denpasar City, only 59 percent.
“We didn’t (reach the target), we are at 71.9 percent. But we are still at the average level of voter participation, that’s the trend,” said Bali KPU commissioner I Gede John Darmawan, Wednesday (4/12/2024).
John explained that the trend of voter participation in each regional election at the provincial level is around 71-74 percent. He emphasized that the KPU would evaluate what was the cause of voter participation in Bali not reaching 75 percent.
(dpw/dpw)
