It’s mid-March, just over a month before Indonesia’s presidential election. Indonesian migrant workers toiling in Taiwan are watching a video recorded by the incumbent president, Joko Widodo, who is seeking re-election. 

“On behalf of myself and Ma’ruf [vice presidential candidate Ma’ruf Amin], I apologize for not being able to attend the event you have organized in Taiwan. I hope you will stay strong, be optimistic in your work, be a good custodian of the country’s reputation, and ultimately successfully return to the home you love,” said Widodo, dressed in a white shirt and black hat, speaking in a Java accent.

“This is the only video made by Widodo for overseas migrant workers,” Usman Kansong, Widodo’s campaign director, told CommonWealth Magazine at the time.      

According to official figures, there are 9 million Indonesians currently working abroad, scattered around the world in such areas as the Middle East, Taiwan and the Malay Peninsula. Some 2 million of them are in Malaysia, and about 270,000 serve as migrant workers in Taiwan. Including students, there are about 280,000 Indonesians in the country.

When Widodo was a furniture merchant early in his professional career, he visited Taiwan several times and still has friends in Kaohsiung. So these overseas Indonesian workers and young students in Taiwan have naturally become an important base of support Widodo’s campaign is trying to cultivate.

Taiwan does not have a system enabling its nationals living overseas (or even outside the town where their households are registered) to vote in its elections, but for Indonesia, which has so many of its nationals working overseas, absentee balloting has been around for a long time.

The country’s presidential election was held on April 17, but because it fell in the middle of the week when migrant workers were on the job, voting in Taiwan took place the preceding Sunday on April 14. Election-related publicity was evident as early as last July and August.

Indonesian migrant workers in Taiwan participated enthusiastically in the last Indonesian presidential election in 2014. (Photo by Pin-chieh Lai)

34 Polling Stations around Taiwan

In photos of polling stations in Taiwan for Indonesia’s 2014 presidential election, one can see monitoring committees consisting of migrant workers and students checking the casting and collecting of ballots. Indonesian voters appear enthusiastic yet orderly, determined to exercise their right to vote despite living outside their own country.

“In overseas voting for the last [presidential election], the process in Taiwan was the most complete with the highest voter turnout anywhere, and was praised by Indonesian authorities,” says Chinese Indonesian Agoeng Antonius, who has lived in Taiwan for 22 years and hosts shows on Taiwan Radio and Formosa Hakka Radio.

Agoeng has 140,000 followers on his Facebook page, and more than half of the migrant workers in Taiwan have listened to his programs.       

He notes that overseas voting procedures for Indonesian citizens were extremely simple. All they had to do was register on the website of the country’s General Election Commission to have a ballot sent to their place of work. After they voted on April 14, the ballots were sent to Indonesia’s representative office in Taiwan, to be counted after voting in Indonesia on April 17 concluded.

A list of polling stations for Indonesians in Taiwan was posted on the General Election Commission’s Facebook page. There were 34 voting venues scattered around Taiwan, from general stores near the Taipei Railway Station where Indonesians congregate to Kaohsiung.

“I live in Tamsui, and I don’t have to go to Taipei. I can vote at a polling station in the Tamsui area,” said an Indonesian university student.

Workers at polling stations dip the little fingers of Indonesians who have already voted in purple ink to ensure that they will not vote twice. (Photo by Pin-chieh Lai)

The 22-year-old student came to Taiwan in September 2018 to study at Tamkang University as an exchange student, only to find herself outside of her country during an election for the first time. Fluent in both English and Chinese, she followed the election campaign with interest and joined with friends also studying in Taiwan in going to vote.

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She explained her support for Widodo in his battle against Prabowo Subianto, a former special forces commander and general who has courted hardline Islamist groups.

“It’s not a secret. The Prabowo campaign has played up religious and ethnic Chinese issues and put Muslims first,” said the student, who thinks of Indonesia as a country that respects diverse cultures.

Election Passion Spreads to Taiwan, Japan, Korea

The Widodo and Prabowo campaigns both set up unofficial organizations in Taiwan to hold campaign events and drum up support among Indonesian migrant workers. Widodo’s team held such an event in Taiwan at the beginning of the year, while Sandiaga Uno, the vice-presidential candidate on the opposition ticket led by Prabowo, delivered a live video message at a Taiwan rally.

One Indonesian who works in Taipei told CommonWealth that he attended a rally in Taipei organized by Widodo’s campaign on Jan. 30 and made a contribution to support the incumbent president.

He estimated attendance at that rally and a subsequent event in Taichung attracted roughly 1,000 people, most of them Indonesian migrant workers like him.

Usman Kansong noted in March in a separate interview in Indonesia that from September 2018 to March 2019, the Widodo campaign had held more than 100 election events inside and outside Indonesia.

“I’ve already been to Taiwan for the election rally and I’m planning to go to Osaka and Korea in April,” he said at the time.

Taiwan is widely known for its freewheeling, passionate elections, but Indonesia seems just as captivated by election season. That enthusiasm for this year’s presidential election clearly extended abroad to places where Indonesian migrant workers and students are concentrated and were able to vote.

Translated by Luke Sabatier
Edited by Sharon Tseng