Author: Jeremy Gross, The Asia Foundation
Deep in Dolly, the red-light district of Surabaya, East Java, four women were sitting patiently. Onstage next to them were two dancers in tight, low-cut spandex costumes, swinging to the beat of dangdut music, while an old crooner with bouffant hair provided the vocals.
As the women waited, light from flashing Bintang beer signs shone upon their clean, pressed clothes. Ignoring the heat of the day, more and more punters poured into this dubious café, its black walls broken only by intermittent advertisements for Guinness beer. Within a short while, over 100 people were in the café, sitting on wobbly school-style chairs or standing wherever they could find a space, waiting with anticipation and excitement.
Suddenly, it was time for the four women sitting up front to take the stage. One woman loudly addressed the standing-room-only crowd that had gathered: ‘Friends and candidates who I love, my name is Reni Astuti and I am the candidate for PKS, the Prosperous Justice Party.’ She was joined by candidates from the Democrat Party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), and the Golkar Party.
Anyone who thinks Indonesian politics is boring should think again.
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Author: Jeremy Gross
On December 29, 2008, Bangladesh held its most credible and most peaceful elections to date. They were free, fair, and without the usual violence and disruption that has accompanied most elections in Bangladesh. Voter turnout hit 88 percent, a remarkable figure for a country with a history, albeit an interrupted one, of regular elections.
These elections differed from years past. Both the orderly management of the elections and a belief that a new style of politics was being ushered-in in Bangladesh, gave the public a renewed sense of confidence in government. The run-up to the cancelled January 2007 elections was marred by street violence and accusations of manipulation of the voter list. In February 2007, the new members of the Bangladesh Election Commission (BEC) worked tirelessly to ensure that the December 2008 elections would be a success, and faced few of the criticisms and complaints brought against its predecessors.
In a remarkable display of organizational mobilization and determination, the BEC worked with the military to gather data from every household in the country to produce a new electoral roll. When finished, it contained photographic identification of all 81 million registered voters. It also had 12 million voters less than the dubious electoral roll the previous BEC had planned to use in January 2007.
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