Jokowi Asks Indonesians to Vote First Before Going on Holidays
Jokowi Asks Indonesians to Vote First Before Going on Holidays
(Bloomberg) -- With Indonesia set to go to polls two days before the long Good Friday weekend, President Joko Widodo has an appeal to voters: exercise your franchise before heading to your favorite holiday destinations.
“You are welcome to go on vacation, but vote first,” Widodo, known as Jokowi, said in a statement. “You can vote at 8 a.m. or at 9 a.m., then immediately fly out at 10 a.m.”
Almost 193 million voters are eligible to participate in the first simultaneous presidential and legislative elections on April 17. Indonesia, which began holding direct presidential elections in 2004, has set a voter turnout target of 77.5 percent this year, compared with 74 percent in the last election.
Jokowi, who is pitted against former special forces general Prabowo Subianto in a rematch of 2014 elections, said it would be unfortunate if people abstained from voting when the government has spent trillions of rupiah for holding the elections. A recent survey by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies showed that 7 percent of its 1,960 respondents planned to go on vacation during the elections.
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The government has set aside 25.6 trillion rupiah ($1.8 billion) to meet election-related expenses since 2017, with more than 60 percent of that amount earmarked for 2019 alone, official data show.
To contact the reporter on this story: Tassia Sipahutar in Jakarta at ssipahutar@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Thomas Kutty Abraham at tabraham4@bloomberg.net, Harry Suhartono
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