Indonesian Party Looks To Social Media To Win General Election

The Golkar party's page on Facebook. Today it has 9,475 fans, and growing slowly

Indonesia’s general election will take place in 2014, but already one of the biggest political parties in the country, Golkar, has laid out its plan to utilize social media sites – such as its Facebook page – to win votes. As we have said many times, Indonesia ranks among the top social media countries in Asia, and indeed the world — so it is understandable that Golkar will try to win over the nation’s netizens.

Sharif Cicip Sutardjo, the Golkar deputy chairman, looked at potential voters between 25 and 45 years of age, and he found that 75 percent of them are mobile-centric people. Golkar felt it would be beneficial to reach the people through the social media they use every day to communicate. Golkar trained party members from Sumatra, Java, and Bali to maximise their usage of social networks like Facebook and Twitter to communicate with the voters. Sharif explained:

We are targeting at least 60 millions votes in the 2014 election. By using social networks, we are sure that we can attract the attention of more than a hundred million voters.”

Since the 1960s, Golkar has been the ruling party in Indonesia for over three decades – but in 2009, Golkar lost the election with only 15 million votes. Now for the next election, they feel they are ready to take back power from the Democratic Party and current President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

This is not the first time for politicians to use social media for electioneering. Earlier this year Singapore saw numerous candidates run their general election campaigns with the help of social media. The greater impact, especially among young people might make it into a new trend across the political world – with social media helping politicians to boost their popularity and grab people’s attention.

[Source: Jakarta Globe]