Andita Rahma, Jakarta – The assessment by sociologist Ariel Heryanto on Indonesians that choose to be non-voters or 'Golput' is mainly caused by people's crisis of trust against the government.

"They don't trust both the incumbent and the opposition," Ariel explained in an email today, Jan. 25.

The lack of trust from this group was unsurprising for Ariel. He said that Indonesia is still in the grasp of 'old powers' ever since the country's detachment from Soeharto's New Order during the 1998 reformation era.

"One or two individuals that are anti-New Order within the government's power circle proved no match against the grasp of former or successors of the New Order," he said.

It would be somewhat misleading to consider the 2019 presidential election as a competition against Jokowi and Prabowo, considering that behind each candidate exist a strongly-nit network of New Order political successors.

Ariel exampled the incumbent Jokowi, who he thinks is a good and clean individual; "But he was raised under the New Order political environment," he said. In his eyes, Jokowi is one individual that was voted by people that gather once every five years and entered the Presidential Palace alone.

"Jokowi, or anyone in that matter, will be helpless in the midst of a political environment that is nearly entirely controlled by the older powers and new ones who adopted the New Order," he said.

Ariel summed it up and said that the 2019 presidential race is not competing against differing ideologies and is simply a power struggle, which is why he said he understands the reasoning behind people's refusal to vote.

Source: https://en.tempo.co/read/1168749/expert-crisis-of-trust-on-govt-created-non-voters-or-golput