Choices.. Choices

The first phase of the Indonesian 2004 presidential elections was held in July. Current results show that either Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono or Megawati will be our next president. That depends on who gets the most votes in the second phase of the elections on september.

Now I'm confused on who to choose in the second phase. My original choice, Amien Rais was eliminated in the first phase. I thought that out of all the candidates, he was the only one that has the capability to really create change. Too bad other people didn't think so (or didn't care enough about change to vote for him).

Well what's done is done I guess. So I now have to choose between Megawati and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Megawati has been mainly an invisible president. She just doesn't show up. You wonder what she's done for the country at all. Megawati doesn't seem to have a vision on where this country is going. You feel that she's just a symbol, a vote getter, but you don't really know who's calling the shots. If there is actually any shot calling at all.

Susilo on the other hand is unproven. Well he made it to being a general, so that must mean something. The main problem I have with susilo is that he is from the military. The military is one of the main forces of corruption in Indonesia. How would a military man (who's been taught for thirty years that the army is his family) be able to be firm to the military?

There are also a whole lot of rumours about Susilo (wonder who started these rumours). The rumours with Susilo is that he is controlled by 'external' forces. Who? Well, it's not the martians.

Another choice would of course be, to not vote. Or 'golput' as the Indonesian call it. It's a simple way out. It means that I don't have to think my choices through.

One reason (stated by many people) is that by voting golput we weaken the legitimacy of the president. I don't believe it works that way. According to all the laws as I come to understand it, the president is still the president even if 90% of the population chooses not to vote. What's more, even if we do not vote, the president's actions would still affect our daily lives. Unfortunately we can't say, 'well I'm not gonna follow your laws because I didn't vote for you', that's not how this works.

I don't see a good reason to not vote. In fact, I feel that by not voting, we may actually find ourselves in the hand of the wrong president.

In this case it would be more correct to say the 'wronger' president.