VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Seoul, South Korea has been ready to implement Presidential Election to be held in 2019. The South Korean Election Committee has been formed and has signed the Integrity Pact at the Embassy Hall in Seoul recently. Indonesia's Ambassador to South Korea, Umar Hadi told RRI World Service -Voice of Indonesia in Jakarta on Thursday (April 5) that based on previous elections, there are two challenges faced in holding elections in South Korea. The first challenge is related to the distribution of information to voters and updating of voters’ data. The second one is how Indonesian citizens -WNI in South Korea can have the opportunity to cast their voting rights. Thus, the Embassy launched Seoul's Whatsapp Center and will deploy voting booths -TPS in strategic areas.

“We have developed a new system using Whatsapp. We update the data of the voters of our migrant workers scattering everywhere in Korea. They do not need to come to the Embassy, they just need WA. With the technology, we can confirm the data and their existence. Secondly, on Election Day, there will be a method of voting by mail so that they do not also have to take a day off to vote. Later, we will map, so that we spread the TPS in a strategic location to enable as many as possible our citizens to cast their voting rights,” Umar Hadi said.

Ambassador Umar Hadi further explained that Indonesian people living in South Korea today are mostly migrant workers. There are at least 40,000 Indonesian citizens. More than 30,000 have complete data and have the rights to vote in the 2019 Presidential Election. He also said that based on 2014 election data, only 10 % of Indonesian citizens in South Korea can use legislative voting rights and 30% presidential voting rights. Therefore, Indonesian Embassy is always improving efforts to facilitate Indonesian citizens in casting their voting rights. Currently, the Embassy in Seoul is starting to update data and it has collected around 30 thousand of Indonesian citizens in South Korea. (VOI/Skr/RHM)