Mayor Election in Palembang

June 7, 2008 is the election day for Palembang's mayor. This event is held once every 5 years. Our factory has only been established for 3.5 years, so this is the first time we had to give time off to employees to go back and vote.

Here are some interesting Indonesian words used during the election period and some interesting facts about elections and voting here:

1. COBLOS (sounds like & pronounced as job-loss) - to vote; literally it means "penetrating a soft object, like paper". Here they had to poke a hole through the voting sheet instead of putting an "X" or tick mark.
2. PILKADA - Abbreviation for PILihan (selection) - KApala (head) - DAerah (area), short for election.
3. TENDA - tents. They put up canvas covered tents at each community area for people to vote.
4. WALIKOTA - mayor
5. Voting period starts from 7am-1pm and the results will be announced by 7pm latest on the same day.
6. Rumors say that after 7pm normally there will be activities of unrest / demonstrations / violence from the losing parties and people are encouraged to stay home.
7. During the voting period 7am-1pm, all activities are put on hold and the day itself is actually a public holiday but it was not observed by our company. We still do not know whether the restaurants are open for lunch?

The next election will be the South Sumatra Governor election in September 2008 (but heard it might be delayed until after the Hari Raya Aidulfitri celebration in October 2008).