Indonesia

Since 1998, over the last five national election cycles, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) has provided support to Indonesia’s civil society, electoral institutions and other key stakeholders across the whole range of electoral disciplines, including legal drafting, election system design, results mechanisms, seat allocation, electoral dispute resolution, voter registration, and voter education and public information.

Among the outcomes of IFES’ activities in Indonesia to date:

• One of IFES’ most important achievements has been its profound commitment to Indonesian experts and their institutions. IFES has helped build wide expertise within an open national electoral community, facilitating unprecedented levels of collaboration between election management bodies (EMBs), civil society and academia.
• The impact of this long-term project on collaboration and capacity building within the electoral sector was on full display in the 2014 election cycle. With one of the largest single-day elections in the world, the 2014 national elections illustrated significant strides in the transparency and effectiveness of the electoral process in Indonesia.
• In 2011, IFES and three prominent Indonesian nongovernmental organizations established the General Election Network for Disability Access (AGENDA). Partnering with regional disabled persons’ organizations, AGENDA has been working on improving access to political and electoral opportunities for persons with disabilities in Southeast Asia.
• IFES’ 2016 “She Leads” training program provided 96 women interested in becoming EMB members with the practical knowledge and skills needed to successfully navigate the highly competitive selection process. Of the 96 participants, 76 applied for national commissioner positions in 2017, resulting in the proportion of women applicants increasing from 17 to 28 percent. Both women who were appointed as commissioners are “She Leads” alumnae. Additionally, 57 percent of “She Leads” participants served as local-level election officials in 2017.
• IFES piloted initiatives to counter disinformation during the June 2018 regional elections and worked with civil society organizations, EMBs and interfaith groups to continue this critical work in the lead-up to the 2019 national election.

For the 2019 election cycle and hundreds of local elections conducted concurrently since from 2015, IFES worked with civil society and academia to support electoral legal reform; improvement of election operations; inclusion of women, youth and persons with disabilities in the electoral process; and maintenance of a comprehensive Indonesian election information portal. IFES also shared international experiences and best practices with Indonesian EMBs as they faced new challenges, such as cybersecurity attacks, disinformation threats and COVID-19.