The Importance Of Media Freedom In Indonesia

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D. VOTER TURNOUT AND MEDIA FREEDOM IN INDONESIA Indonesia held the first general election in 1955, just a decade after their independence. The election was conducted in two stages, the election of the members of the House of Representatives (in Indonesian: Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat or DPR) and the election of the members of the Constitutional Assembly (in Indonesian: Dewan Konstituante or DK), with the participation of 36 political parties (KPU 2010, p. 4-5). The next elections held during the era of “New Order” under the authoritarian regime of President Suharto occurred six times in 1971, 1977, 1982, 1987, 1992, and 1997 (Ibid, p. 6-11). During that time, only the 1971 election has the most participants (10 political parties) whereas for the rest, only 3 political parties participated: the Functional Groups Party (in Indonesian: Partai Golongan Karya or Golkar), United Development Party (in Indonesian: Partai Persatuan Pembangunan or PPP), and Indonesian Democratic Party (in…show more content…
Nevertheless, we need to see the side effect it has for those people who initially have been struggling with their trust with the government. Based on the theory that most people tend to spend less time to gather reliable information when it comes to voting (Tullock et al 2002, p. 6), it was possible that most of them would only gather the information by watching the news or scrolling through their social media accounts. Nevertheless, as we have discussed before, what they have probably witnessed were either excessive negative campaigns or positive reportage related to both candidates. This kind of bad reports that kept coming from both sides, especially on a daily basis, could possibly increase their skepticism and push them to being politically disaffected, and in the end led them to not using their rights to

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