The protest voting behaviour among local voters in the 2020 Surakarta mayoral election

Abstract

This research explores the protest voting phenomenon in the Surakarta, Indonesia, mayoral election in response to political oligarchy. It uses a qualitative method, and the data analysis uses NVivo 12 Plus software. The findings reveal that the protest voting movement in the Surakarta mayoral election occurred as an effort to resist political parties. The protest vote made ballots invalid, showing no trust in candidates. Political parties practiced oligarchy by jointly endorsing the president's active son as a candidate. The parties had no initiative in bringing up alternative candidates due to the pragmatism of powers. Then, this political oligarchy became headline news. This research implies that public trust in political parties as instruments of democracy has increasingly degraded due to the parties’ pragmatic behavior. Moreover, voters have understood that oligarchic practices must be resisted in order to select ideal leaders.