Rumah Pemilu Indonesia Election Portal
When defining the meaning of youth, there are many versions adapted by various institutions. According to Law Number 40 concerning Youth, Article 1 Point 1 states that youth are a group in the age range of 16–30 years. Different from the legal version, the General Election Commission (KPU) defines youth in the age group of 17–40 years.
Talking about the role of youth in political contestation, especially in the upcoming 2024 regional elections, we can see what role youth can take. At the age of 17 years, or the youngest age category according to the KPU, young people have a role as full citizens; that is, they can vote in regional and general elections. Even if they are not yet 17 years old but are married, they are allowed to participate in the elections either way. whether regional elections or general elections.
The youth themselves in Indonesia have special privileges, especially generation Z and millennials. Youth has always been identified as an established age to build idealism and integrity, be adaptive to current developments, and be critical of issues that include the public interest. Of course, youth have a role, both specific and general, in determining the political process in Indonesia today. This easy access can be utilized well by young people as real action for change.
Youth participation can be seen from how they contributed to the 2024 elections. According to data from the KPU, young people who are a combination of generation Z and millennials contributed around 56% to the DPT in the 2024 elections. This is a large number and certainly dominates the voter group of all ages.
However, what is the role of youth in their participation in both election contests and regional elections? Ideally, the greater the participation of an identity group, the greater its representation in political contestation. The aim is so that the interests of these groups can be accommodated properly. In the 2024 elections, the KPU determined that there were 1,473 DPR RI legislative candidates registered as Permanent Candidate Lists (DCT). This figure is a starting point in efforts to accelerate the participation and representation of young people in the political arena.
As of today, youth participation is still focused on constituents rather than contestants. The large number of participants should encourage young people to take part in competing as contestants. Voting for the 2024 Simultaneous Regional Elections will be held on November 27, 2024. So, what are the opportunities and challenges for young people in the upcoming regional elections?
Opportunity
First opportunity. Some time ago, the public was shocked by the release of Supreme Court (MA) Decision Number 23 P/HUM/2024, which changed the age limit rules for regional head candidates in PKPU Number 9 of 2020 Article 4 Paragraph 1 point d, which previously counted from the time of appointment as a candidate to the time of inauguration. The minimum age requirement for regional head candidates is 30 years for candidates for Governor and Deputy Governor and 25 years for candidates for Mayor and Deputy Mayor and candidates for Regent and Deputy Regent. Apart from this decision being an intrigue that represents the partial interests of one of the parties, we can see from the perspective of the opportunities that can be offered by changing the rules so as to provide more opportunities for young people to take on the role of contestants in the 2024 regional elections.
The second opportunity, the ability to quickly adapt to information media, can accelerate knowledge in various forms, including understanding popular culture. This encourages young people to reproduce a public issue and develop it as a prospect for electoral and political development.
However, young people must be careful when using information media because it can backfire and paralyze themselves. According to Nasution & Hafizsutrisno (2024), social media encourages the democratization of information; information can be easily spread quickly and freely, and this accessibility is favored by young people, especially generation Z. The implications of spreading news freely, quickly, and easily give rise to pragmatic behavior.
If young people are easily led to their opinions by the information that is spread, especially if the information is tendentious, it will create a paradox between truth and lies. This is known as post-truth. For this reason, young people must be more critical of information that is spread freely because this information could contain misleading discourse.
The third opportunity is that youth are reformist agents. We often hear an identity that is more attached to young people, especially students, namely agent of change, guardian of values, social control, moral force, and social control. In essence, of these five roles, youth are agents who are able to move towards the nation’s progress with the intellect and breadth of insight possessed by youth.
According to the book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey, he explains that there are 7 habits that can build individual capacity. The second habit is to begin with the end in mind. This means that a person must be able to set a vision and blueprint for life through a clear and mature plan to achieve goals.
The transformative and productive critical paradigm becomes a method of thinking for young people in exploring popular public problems and includes real solutions and actions as a concrete manifestation of creating national progress. For this reason, through thinking and emotional intelligence, young people can begin to organize and plan important goals through political participation. One of them is through his role as a political contestant, which can start in the next regional elections.
Challenge
It cannot be denied that despite these opportunities, there are challenges that must be faced by young people to participate as contestants in the regional elections. The first challenge is that the rules are not truly inclusive of the youth age group. This assumption stems from determining the age range of youth according to the Youth Law and the KPU. The age of youth according to the Youth Law is 16–30 years, and according to the KPU, the age of youth is 17–40 years; however, the minimum age for regional head candidates themselves is 25–30 years.
So the question is: why were these regulations not made in accordance with the age of youth according to the law and the version made by the KPU, namely at least 16 or 17 years old, or even under that age, but already married? This means that these regulations still limit young people from participating as contestants in the upcoming regional elections.
The second challenge is the skepticism that has emerged among the older age group. Youth generally do have intelligence and idealistic thinking, but youth are considered to be people who lack experience and are therefore not yet ready to manage a large institution.
This argument is not wrong, but young people themselves rely on their idealism to build integrity, accountability, and good governance. If he can be entrusted to manage a large institution, such as the government, As stated by Anies Baswedan, “Young people lack experience; therefore, they don’t offer the past. Young people offer the future.” That is why young people are called reformist agents, because the goal is transformation towards an established social and political order.
The third challenge is social media and the post-truth era. Social media can certainly be a very real opportunity and threat, especially in the post-truth era. Post-truth is interpreted as a situation in the landscape of information distribution. Objective facts are no longer used as a paradigm in conveying opinions, but rather opinions are built through emotions and personal beliefs (Putro, 2020).
Young people must be careful about the various information that appears to the public, so that information that appears and is not substantive becomes a form of self-confidence. In fact, this can result in errors in thinking.
Youth also have to be careful with the culture of FOMO (fear of missing out) on social media. FOMO itself is driven by youth behavior to continuously update information in individual networks on social reality (Ilahi & Tungga, 2024). FOMO, which is based on positive information, can be justified, but if the FOMO has a negative tone and threatens the integrity of young people as citizens, that is a real problem. Youth must truly represent themselves as individuals who are politically intelligent and network savvy so that they are able to protect themselves from the negative phenomena that are developing widely.
The fourth challenge is the ability of political parties to mobilize youth. One of the functions of political parties is political recruitment. Even though in regional elections candidates can run individually or independently, the existence of political parties is very determinant in carrying out political recruitment for young people and providing large electoral support.
If political parties express their support by nominating young people in regional elections, it can increase young people’s opportunities to contest. However, if you reflect on the number of legislative candidates in the DPR RI DCT last election, the number is still quite far compared to the older age group. In the age range of 21–40 years, there are 3,202 legislative candidates, and for those for those aged >40 years, there are 6,709 legislative candidates. This figure is quite unequal compared to the total DPT, where young people dominate 56% of voters.
The simultaneous regional elections in 2024 are a proving ground for young people to switch from spectators to actors, from constituents to contestants. It is time for young people to romanticize themselves as agents of change. It’s time for youth to prove themselves as agents of change.
Change can come from the smallest scale first. This starts at the family scale, then the then the community scale, then moves to a higher scale, namely the country. Through youth participation in the upcoming 2024 regional elections as contestants, it is hoped that they will be able to bring about real change and represent the interests of the youth groups who dominate the population in Indonesia.
It is hoped that these opportunities will motivate every young person to be more proactive in the ongoing political process. All these challenges can be evaluated, and solutions can be found to expand youth opportunities in the political arena. It’s time for young people, with their critical reasoning, to take a role in building the nation. []
M. DZAKI JANEIRO HIDAYAT
Political Science Student, Airlangga University
