On 29 May at 5.30 – 8.00 pm the Indonesian documentary Dirty Vote was screened at SEA Junction. This documentary was a controversial hit when it was released on YouTube a few days before the Presidential Election held on 14 February 2024 in Indonesia and got 20 million viewers in the first two weeks. Directed by Dandhy Dwi Laksono, the documentary features three Indonesian constitutional law experts, namely Bivitri Susanti, Feri Amsari, and Zainal Arifin Mochtar sharing their views and analysis on the upcoming election and particularly the unfair use of power to influence vote. The three legal experts presented evidence to argue that systematic interference and misuse of State resources would affect the election results thus undermining the democratic order Indonesians had fought hard to achieve for the sake of defence of the status quo.

A recent Constitutional Court decision, with a vote of 5 to 3, has rejected the claims of massive fraud by the two loosing presidential candidates, their supporters and other concerned parties. The election results and the victory of Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka as President and Vice President of Indonesia were thus confirmed. Still, many continue to believe that a strategic factor in determining the elections has been the backing by the current President Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, and his apparatus. To start with, as also discussed in the documentary, such pairing of candidates was made possible by the dubious and, later found “unethical”, clearing of the President’s son as vice-presidential candidate by the same constitutional court at the time chaired by the President’s brother–in-law.

What these developments imply for Indonesia’s governance and democracy in the future were the topic of discussion with the constitutional expert and one of the three speakers in the documentary Dirty Vote Feri Amsari and the writer and analyst Michael Vatikiotis.

Photographer: Vinissa Kattiya-Aree