Rumah Pemilu Indonesia Election Portal
Migrant Care urges the members of the Special Committee for Elections Law Bill to allocate additional seats for overseas voters. Wahyu Susilo, the executive director of Migrant Care, an NGO which focuses on the protection of migrant workers, argues that the addition of parliamentary seats from 560 to 575 will mean nothing if it excludes overseas constituency.
“Members of the Special Committee and parliament members in general should be more aggressive in providing Indonesian citizen abroad with proper parliamentary representation,” says Wahyu, in Jakarta (06/15).
According to Wahyu, forming overseas constituency is the first thing the government has to do if they want to improve its parliamentary system. The existence of overseas constituency will greatly help Indonesian citizen abroad to express their aspirations and interests.
Wahyu also says that by accommodating the interests and aspirations of citizen abroad will improve the quality of Indonesian elections and democracy, because then the government would have successfully fulfill the ‘no one left behind’ principle.
There are currently 6.5 million Indonesian citizens living overseas. These citizens create no less than 100 billion rupiahs of wealth every year for Indonesia. However, ironically enough, until today these people are unable to express their political aspirations due to the fact that the government has not form an overseas constituency yet.
