THE EFFECTS OF NEO-LIBERALISM AND ELECTORAL SYSTEM ON VOTER TURNOUT: ANALYSIS OF 2009 INDONESIAN LEGISLATIVE ELECTION

This paper investigates the effects of neo-liberalism and electoral system on voter turnout in 2009 Indonesian legislative election. With the spread of Asian Financial Crisis to Indonesia in 1997, a structural reform agreement was made with the International Money Fund (IMF). However, structural reform compelled the country to abandon developmental state model and embrace free-market policies. Although economic growth has been achieved significantly, the level of poverty is still problematic and income inequality has been increasing since the reform. At the same time, with the beginning of democratic elections in 1999, electoral system gradually shifted from party-centered to candidate-centered system. As a result, politicians have to rely more on their personal reputation rather than their party identities, which force them appeal to vote-buying and clientelistic incentives to cultivate personal vote, rather than providing programmatic policies regarding economic or social problems of the country. Considering both neo-liberalism and candidate-centered electoral system, this paper argues that while neo-liberal policies are unable to overcome poverty and lead to an increase in income inequality for the sake of economic growth, politicians take advantage of the system in the elections through clientelistic and vote-buying incentives, which results in higher voter turnout in poor provinces. By using the statistics of the socio-economic indicators of 2009 and 2012 from Statistics Indonesia (Badan Pusat Statistik), and election results of 2009 from electoral commission of Indonesia (Komisi Pemilihan Umum), a multivariate regression analysis was made by observing all 33 provinces. The results support the argument and show that at province level, higher percentage of poverty and higher income inequality have positive effect on voter turnout.