The Indonesian ambassador to Malaysia said the enthusiasm of Indonesian citizens (WNI) in Kuala Lumpur to vote for the new leader was quite high.
“Earlier I saw … the enthusiasm was quite high and I saw that the officers were quite enthusiastic,” Indonesian Ambassador to Malaysia Hermono said on Sunday.
“Hopefully this will all go smoothly and we prove that the elections in Kuala Lumpur will run smoothly, in an orderly manner,” Hermono said after casting his vote at Polling Station 001 at the World Trade Center in Kuala Lumpur.
He said the Indonesian general election in Kuala Lumpur was the largest overseas. He also emphasized that all election implementers must be ready to serve Indonesian citizens who cast their votes.
In addition to the implementation of voting, he said the day of vote counting also needs to be anticipated because usually there will be many parties who want to see directly the process of counting votes.
“And it is concentrated at the WTC. We hope that today will be smooth and February 14 will be even smoother,” said Hermono.
Chairman of the General Election Commission (KPU) Hasyim Asy’ari said that the vote counting time for the TPS and Mobile Ballot Box (KSK) methods will be held on February 14. Meanwhile, the vote count for the postal method will be held on February 15-22.
Joyce Rumbayan, an Indonesian migrant worker from Manado who has worked in Malaysia for 16 years, said she was excited to vote to get a new Indonesian leader.
She hopes that the elected president and vice president will be able to lead Indonesia better, and can advance migrant workers like her in Kuala Lumpur.
Especially, she said, can help with health issues for migrant workers considering that so far they have difficulty getting access to health from the government.
Joyce came to WTC to cast her vote with her colleagues from Manado. She started queuing outside the world trade center building in Kuala Lumpur at 08.30 Malaysian time (MYT).
Meanwhile, 84-year-old Kusmiasih Kaswih from Bandung, West Java, who came accompanied by her son to cast her vote, said she was relieved.
Kusmiasih came to the polling station using a wheelchair. According to her son, who has lived and worked 24 years in Malaysia, since Saturday (10/2) night his mother has been anxious to vote in the 2024 elections.
The queue of voters for the Kuala Lumpur Permanent Voter List (DPT) was already quite long at around 08.30. Some elderly and disabled residents received priority from the Overseas Election Committee (PPLN) through fast lanes.
The excitement had occurred when at around 10.50 a number of groups of citizens from two supporters of presidential and vice presidential candidates yelled at each other while raising their fingers according to the serial numbers of the candidates they supported.
The action took place outside the WTC building.
However, there was no chaos between the supporters of each presidential and vice presidential candidate pair. Instead, they took turns shouting chants in support of their respective “heroes”.
Some of them carried campaign props, ranging from t-shirts to fans printed with the faces of the presidential and vice presidential candidates they supported.
The enthusiasm of Indonesian citizens to be able to vote immediately also occurred inside the building when they were still queuing to get their turn to the voter data verification room.
At that time, several times there was jostling that made the guardrails collapsed and had to be repeatedly repaired by the election committee.
