Peaceful General Election

INDONESIA held general election, yesterday, April 9, 2014, to choose legislators who will take the seats of House of Representatives on local, provincial, and national levels. There were 12 political parties participating on the election. They are Nasdem, Golkar, PKS, PDI-P, Demokrat, Gerindra, PKB, PAN, PBB, Hanura, PPP, and PKPI.

According to quick count and exit poll several hours after the ballot was closed, PDI-P was leading with about 19% of total votes, followed by Golkar on the second place with 12% votes, and Gerindra with 10% votes. Demokrat as a ruling party faced significant loss with only 7% votes.

No party could nominate its own candidate to run for the presidential election that will be held on July 9, 2014 because there was no party which passed minimum 20% votes as presidential threshold. That condition constrains each party to form coalition with others to nominate a common president candidate and that will be a complicated matter. Anyway, I was relieved the general election was going well and peacefully.