Printing presses work around the clock in election campaigns (Al Jazeera)
Jakarta -
The electoral process in large countries is linked to hectic economic and commercial activity, most of which is focused on the electoral campaign and propaganda activity, which is the core of the elections and the most influential.
The Indonesian election data in terms of the numbers of voters, candidates and seats being contested, and its coincidence for the first time with the presidential elections, reflects the volume of propaganda that accompanies the election campaign. On the morning of next Wednesday, February 14, approximately 520 million voters will go to vote in 823,220 polling stations.
The number of parties eligible to run in the legislative elections this year reached 24 political parties, which presented 9,919 candidates, to fill 580 seats in the central parliament, and 20,000 representatives were selected in the parliaments of 38 regions and 514 governorates.
Each presidential candidate forms an alliance with political parties to secure their support for him, in exchange for demands that he fulfills for them in the event of his victory, as he is required to obtain 50% + 1 of the votes cast, and no less than 20% of the votes, in more than half of the 38 governorates to win. With the presidency, which raises the cost of the presidential candidates’ expenses to secure this alliance, in addition to the intense and expensive propaganda campaigns.
Flags of parties participating in the elections on a street in Jakarta (Anatolia)
Elections at a high cost
The geography of Indonesia, which consists of 13,000 islands, including nearly 7,000 inhabited islands, inhabited by 270 million people, contributes to the complexity of managing elections in remote areas far from cities, in terms of setting up polling stations and ensuring the transportation of ballot boxes and monitoring them.
The Ministry of Finance allocated a budget of 71.3 trillion rupees ($4.5 billion) for the 2024 elections, which makes it the largest in the post-reform era, and nearly 3 times the budget for the 2019 elections, which amounted to 25.59 trillion rupees (about 1.5 billion dollars).
The General Election Commission said that the 18 political parties competing in the elections have so far spent about 165 billion rupees (about 10 million dollars) to cover the expenses of their candidates.
Social media platforms in Indonesia find their opportunity during election seasons to promote candidates, due to their wide spread in society, especially the Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok platforms, which represent the main reference for political marketing.
The Digital Indonesia Foundation’s statistics for 2023 show that out of 212 million Internet users - at the beginning of the year - there are 167 million active users on social media platforms. In detail, 184 million of them are Instagram users, 178 million Facebook users, and Tik Tok has 150 million users.
The value of political advertisements from August 2020 to October 2023 is estimated at approximately 71 billion rupees (about 4.5 million dollars), with a total of 272 thousand and 10 advertisements broadcast.
The number of social media users in Indonesia reaches 167 million (Al Jazeera)
Commercial sectors are recovering
The elections in Indonesia depend on enhancing the presence of the symbols of candidates and parties and their colors in the electoral campaigns. Each party has a flag, logo, and color that distinguishes it, and the extent of the spread of the party and its candidates is demonstrated by the presence of its symbols in the streets and in the places where parties are allowed to publish their flags and pictures.
Large numbers of clothes and accessories that promote presidential candidates and party logos and flags are also on display in the markets. Traders in the “Sneen” market, which prints such advertising materials, say: “We receive up to 5,000 orders for T-shirts weekly,” as they are the most popular medium. and effectiveness used by candidates.
Factory owners said that the volume of work in some of them doubled, with income increasing by 100%. In one store, 4 printing machines worked day and night, and they have the capacity to print up to 3,000 square meters of materials per day, to produce more than 200,000. Significant in this election alone.
A study prepared by the Economic Center for the widely circulated Kobas newspaper estimates that the volume of commercial activity for advertising materials for election campaigns in the current elections amounted to 100 trillion rupees (about 6 billion dollars).
Former spokesman for the Indonesian Ministry of Commerce, Dr. Fitra Faisal, says, “Some sectors of the economy are active in the election atmosphere, especially the printing, advertising, and textile industries, thanks to the huge budget allocated by the government to hold the elections, worth $4.5 billion.”
He added in his speech to Al Jazeera Net: “But there is an additional budget that President Joko spends under social aid, especially after his son ran for the position of vice president with candidate Prabowo Subianto, which in Indonesia we call the “pig box policy,” and it falls within the president’s powers. To spend on social assistance in a way that indirectly serves his interests, such as his son’s candidacy in the elections.”
While the director of the University of Economic and Financial Development and member of the Indonesian Banking Supervision Agency, Muhammad Fadil Hassan, believes that “the impact of the election campaign on the Indonesian economy was in the range of 0.6% in previous years, but this time it may be a little more, due to the holding of the presidential, central and regional parliamentary elections.” at same time".
Faisal believes that "the group that benefits most from electoral campaigns is the poor, which constitutes the largest electoral pool in the country, and is pursued by candidates seeking their votes. As for the rich, who are about 20% of the population, they refrain from buying and selling while awaiting the results of the elections."
This was reflected - according to the opinion of the former spokesman in the Indonesian Ministry of Commerce - in the rise in economic activity in the last third of 2023 to 18%, while in the first half of the year it was around 5.5%.
An economic study showed that the volume of commercial activity for advertising materials for the ongoing election campaigns in Indonesia amounted to $6 billion (Al Jazeera)
Convergence of opportunities and divergence of programs
Observers expect that the relative convergence between the chances of the three candidates will - in most cases - prevent the presidential race from being decided in the first round, and prompt a second round next June. Some also fear the impact of the period of anticipation of who will be the next president on the country's economy.
Dr. Faisal comments: “We need to wait for the policies of the winning president and not the electoral programs, because the candidates let their imagination run wild during the election campaign, such as one candidate who pledges to build 40 cities like Jakarta, and the other promises the people to provide free food and milk. Where do they get the budget for these projects?”
Hassan agrees with Faisal that the number of electoral rounds is not important, despite his expectation that there will be two rounds, “and their number has no impact on the economy. What matters is that the elections are held in a safe and stable atmosphere in order to maintain the stability of the economy.”
However, in his interview with Al Jazeera Net, he believes that "the economic programs of the candidates vary greatly, and their impact on the economy in the coming years will be significant, depending on the person of the elected president."
He explains his meaning by saying: “One candidate promises to provide 19 million job opportunities in the first year, and this is unreasonable, while one candidate focuses on labor-based manufacturing, and another aspires to an economy that relies on technology and machines, and this reduces labor opportunities.”
Source: Al Jazeera