Hera Diani – Neither heat, humidity nor even a national holiday can deter the Indonesian voter, it seems. While most of the country was quietly observing the Prophet Muhammad's birthday last Monday, about 100 residents of the crowded Kampung Guji Baru slum in West Jakarta spent the day in an alley covered by a makeshift tarpaulin.

There was a method to their seeming madness. The locals were taking part in an election education program held by the Voter Education Network for the People, or JPPR, a private nongovernmental organization. The participants all appeared willing to vote, albeit not over-enthusiastically, but they remained confused about how to physically do so.

If this anecdotal sampling of one kampung in Jakarta is any indication, fears that tens of millions of ballots cast during the April 9 legislative elections will be thrown out for being incorrectly marked are not entirely justified. Even more worrying, the public may view voting as an ingrained authoritarian-esque obligation rather than a reformasi-era responsibility.

"I don't know who to vote for," exclaimed a housewife, looking bug-eyed at a large photocopied sample ballot. "This is such a long list of parties and candidates."

Around 171 million people are registered to vote for candidates running for national, provincial and local legislative seats next month, and in the presidential election in July, according to the General Elections Commission. Their choices, aside from determining which political parties will rise and fall, are yet another step in Indonesia's electoral evolution that began 10 years ago.

Daniel Zuchron from JPPR said confusion over marking ballots aside, voters were more sophisticated and intelligent after taking part in free national and local elections since June 1999. "Voters are smarter and more critical because they have been deceived a lot of times. It has been 10 years since the reform period began, but many people are disappointed. They feel that there is no change in their lives, economic-wise," he said.

These experiences, Zuchron said, have given rise to more pragmatic voters who will cast ballots for more familiar faces who they know and feel they will benefit from. "The benefit can be money, rapport, the sense that the candidates will give them hope for the better," he said.

Ray Rangkuti from the Civic Network for Indonesia, a political research group, said a sense of pragmatism, if not apathy, was seen in a series of provincial and district elections in 2008, during which voter turnout was only about 50 percent.

"I think the trend [of lower turnout] will continue. People are getting tired of voting; more and more people don't care," Rangkuti said. "Well, unless there is something exciting happening."

Sunny Tanuwidjaja, a researcher in the politics department of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta, said surveys showed that people were willing to vote, but that they were more excited about voting in the presidential election than in legislative or local elections.

"People in the regions don't really care about local elections; they don't see them as significant," he said. "Perhaps their mind-set is still with the centralized government, although local administrations directly affect their lives more."

Tanuwidjaja said that based on several surveys, the primary reason people vote for certain candidates is their track record. They will vote for candidates who have proven themselves, as voters are becoming disillusioned by election campaign promises, "unless the incumbents are seen as failures," he said.

That perception could be critical, as election analysts have said that up to 52 percent of incumbents in the House of Representatives will be voted out on April 9.

However, Tanuwidjaja said factors like high-profile personalities, ethnicity and religion still influence voters, even if only indirectly. The popularity of Islam-based political parties has overall dropped in recent years despite the fact that Indonesian society has become somewhat more conservative, he said.

"It seems that people don't express their religiosity in politics. Maybe because Islamic parties are marred by internal conflicts," Tanuwidjaja said. "But religion still plays an important part in people's political expression, which is why some nationalist parties are more tolerant and accommodating of growing conservatism. The House's anti-pornography special committee, for example, was led by the Democratic Party," Tanuwidjaja said.

He said that while the public adopted an increasingly logical approach to voting, they still had limited information about candidates, their platforms and how to properly cast ballots. "The election pattern is complex, with the change in the mechanism of [directly] electing legislative candidates, for example, and the high number of political parties. People get confused," he said.

With 38 political parties running for the House, there are many choices, but critics say there are few differences among the parties as well as candidates. Both have been criticized for failing to develop party platforms and for not even presenting to voters a mission or program, with campaign ads only showing candidates' faces and empty slogans.

On the other hand, both Tanuwidjaja and Zuchron said that if candidates did publicize their campaign manifestos and party platforms, the abundance of information on complex issues could further confuse voters.

"In the end, people will vote for the candidates who they are most familiar with and those who frequently appear on advertisements. There should be more dialog or a better approach to reach voters," Zuchron said.

Then there's the issue of money politics. More than in any previous election campaign, candidates are handing out "gifts" ranging from cash to farm tools in hopes of wooing voters, given new rules that award seats to candidates who have won the most votes. However, candidates counter that voters are increasingly demanding money just for showing up at campaign rallies or even the polling stations.

"Most voters think that 'good' candidates are the people who can give them money," said Nursantia Nasution, an incumbent House candidate from the Prosperous Justice Party. "It's because we're in a [political] transition. Most voters don't really understand what their lawmakers do."

And what about first time voters? There are fears among analysts that they'll walk into the polling booths blind to the choices before them and what the big issues are. "Young, first-time voters, for example, are not given enough education," Zuchron said.

While first-timers comprise only about 10 percent of all registered voters, Tanuwidjaja said they could be significant in terms of influencing people to go vote or to support certain candidates as they were still "highly optimistic."

Tanuwidjaja said there was still room for improvement in attracting the ever elusive voter, including for parties to display a clearer stance on issues.

"They should be more daring in stating whether they are based on Pancasila, conservatism, capitalism, socialism and so on," he said. "Without a clearer stance, it will be confusing for them to translate their ideology into policy once they assume power."