Hum Dee Dum…
Dear Diary,
No, someone didn’t whack my little finger. The purple thing at the tip of my finger was caused by the ink. Today, for the first time, I exercised my right as an Indonesian citizen. Together with 148 million others, my parents, grandmother, and myself went to the voting centres to vote for our representative in the government. As a memento to this (and to make sure noone voted more than once) they had one of our fingers being marked by the ink, which can’t be rubbed off even until now.
Personally, I have doubts on this year’s General Elections, or Pemilu, short of Pemilihan Umum, as the locals call it. Firstly, the same problem with the last General Elections exists. Not many of the public actually knows the political parties taking part in the elections. This is why the big parties like PDI-P (Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle) and PKB (National Awakening Party) might get much more votes than the other relatively new parties. Now, does this really show what the people want? Or is it just what the people know?
Secondly, there is a slight change in the General Elections procedures. Instead of having one elections to choose the party representing the people, we have up to THREE elections, the first is to choose our representative, the second to choose our President, and the third, which would be conducted if there were no outright winner (i.e. President by choice) on the second election.
For this first elections, we had FOUR (that’s right, FOUR) gigantic paper slips. Each slip is used to vote for the Member of Parliament, Provincial Parliament, District/City Parliament, and Area Representative in the Parliament (note: these might not be the official translations. Any help would be appreciated. These are called: Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat, Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah Provinsi, Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah Kabupaten/Kota, and Dewan Perwakilan Daerah).
Despite the efforts by the General Elections Committee (known as KPU or Komisi Pemilihan Umum by the locals) to familiarise the new methods and procedures to the public, I’m quite sure that out of the 148 million voters, some are bound to be confused. What was once a small slip containing only three symbols of the three political parties existing in Indonesia, now has bloomed into 4 A0-sized slips.
Lastly (or at least the last I can remember now) they seem to have some queer methods in determining who can and cannot vote. Each voter is given a card identifying that this person is eligible for a vote. Sounds good? But what if a toddler of 2 years old, and a deceased person are also issued with such cards? And what if a person who is completely healthy and alive, and is more than 18 years old (the minimum age to vote) is not issued with one? Or even if he/she is issued, his/her name is registered wrongly? Isn’t the accuracy of these something that the people in the KPU had left out?
Oh well, enough about General Elections. Now, updates on myself. A few days ago, I was happily sending messages when suddenly the handphone complained that it couldn’t send the last message. Upon calling the balance checking hotline, I was confronted with this screen:
I’m dead. Do you know how low it is? If I tell you that SGD 1 is roughly equal to IDR 4500, you can work it out to be around 0.3 Singapore cents. Bloody 0.3 Singapore cents! I can’t believe I’ve used so much of my balance! Aaargh! And I’ve promised myself I won’t ask for a top-up until the current card almost expires, which will be on the 27th this month. Still quite some time from now I guess. *sweat* *sweat*
Oh anyway, of course, I still have the Internet to communicate with the outside world. Gosh, it’s damn boring here. And if I keep on talking about my boredom I’m sure I’ll bore some of you out.
So let’s talk about what I’m planning to do the next few days. (Yes, I have some things planned, but sometimes you just don’t feel like doing these, and you’ll still feel bored).
Anyway, I’m planning on going on a round-the-world trip on my Learjet. Oh fine, I’m planning on going on a round-the-virtual-world trip on my virtual Learjet. Fair enough. I’m going eastwards, starting from Jakarta, and have been visiting Bali, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, Hawaii, and some of North America. I’m currently virtually located in Panama, and shall continue my trip tomorrow. Just for fun, here’s a map of my trip so far:
I’ll make sure I upload my trip details when I’ve completed the trip.
Ok, I think I just bored some of you out. Didn’t I?
Bored,
bcc