Chinese-influenced voter fraud has been a popular conspiracy theory in some of Indonesia’s recent major elections, especially among supporters of the opposition. They usually involve Chinese citizens who are supposedly being mobilized by the millions to vote in Indonesia in favor of President Joko Widodo and his administration.
Such theories gained fuel recently when a photo of an e-KTP (electronic ID card) — showing a man living in Cianjur, West Java, but with “China” written as his nationality — went viral, supposedly as proof that the Chinese are infiltrating next April’s presidential and legislative elections.
But those worries were soon put to bed by the government, who said that, by law, foreigners have been able to obtain e-KTPs since 2014.
“So it’s not a new [policy]. I see this becoming an issue because we are facing the presidential and legislative elections,” Civil Registration Office Director General Zudan Arif Fakrulloh said yesterday, as quoted by CNN Indonesia.
Zudan added that Article 63 of Law no. 24/2013 on Residency Administration mandates that foreigners above the age of 17 who possess a Permanent Stay Permit (KITAP) must obtain an e-KTP.
As for worries that foreigners with e-KTP could be mobilized for election fraud, Zudan said that not all e-KTP owners — especially not foreigners — can be registered to vote.
“In the e-KTP it is specified what country the holder is from, so there is no need to worry because organizers at voting booths are trained to differentiate e-KTP owned by foreigners,” he said.
At any rate, the controversial e-KTP from Cianjur has been proven to be fake by the General Election Commission (KPU).
Among the most common hoaxes about incumbent President Jokowi are those alleging that he is pandering to China and that the Chinese government is aiding his re-election effort. In January, the police arrested two people for spreading a hoax story about millions of tampered ballots from China supposedly aimed at helping Jokowi in April’s election.
More extreme hoaxes about Jokowi say that he is secretly a Chinese-Christian or that he’s secretly a member of the banned Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).
