Ref: Bagi yang bermukin di luarnegeri mempunyai kepesempatn menjadi  wakil 
rakyat di DPR. Gaji  besar, fasilitas banyak antara lain bisa dapat mobil, 
laptop, mobil phone, mungkin juga rumah lengkap dengan perabotnya, ada tukang 
kebun, sopir, tunjangan beras etc. Tempat terbatas, jangan ketinggalan 
kesempatan unik ini.

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/indonesian-diaspora-calls-for-overseas-representation/573981

Indonesian Diaspora Calls for Overseas Representation
Anastasia Winanti Riesardhy | February 26, 2013




Indonesian communities living overseas are seeking to have their voices heard 
in the legislature, arguing that there should be lawmakers representing the 4.6 
million Indonesians living abroad. 

The Indonesian Diaspora Network has been pressing the government to establish a 
dedicated electoral area for Indonesian voters overseas. Currently, their votes 
are registered administratively as part of the Jakarta II electoral area, which 
covers South and Central Jakarta.

Veri Junaidi, a lawyer for the group, said that his team has proposed a 
Constitutional Court review of the 2012 Law on Elections. 
The court is scheduled to cross-examine witnesses and experts brought by the 
plaintiffs on Tuesday next week. 

According to Veri, in the last two sessions at the Constitutional Court, the 
government argued that establishing a dedicated electoral area for overseas 
voters would present huge challenges, including for campaigning. 

“The DPR [House of Representatives] and the government should not focus solely 
on administrative and technical issues while ... disregarding a citizen’s 
political and constitutional rights to be represented [in the parliament],” he 
said. 

The lawyer argued that by having lawmakers represent an overseas electoral 
area, Indonesians working abroad would be better protected and their voices 
would be heard.

Veri also highlighted the overseas communities’ contribution to the Indonesian 
economy, which he said grew from $1.5 billion in 2002 to $7.1 billion in 2011. 

Wahyudi Djafar, another lawyer for the group, said that there is little reason 
for the government to keep assigning overseas voters to the Jakarta II 
electoral area. 

“The data from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows that there are 4.6 million 
Indonesians registered in 147 [Indonesian] missions. But the ministry also said 
that there could be 7 million to 8 million unregistered [Indonesians abroad],” 
he said. 

The figure is substantially bigger than the population of the two Jakarta 
municipalities combined, which stands at 3.3 million.

Jakarta, a city of 8 million people, has three electoral areas and a total of 
21 lawmakers in the House. 

The group’s president, Mohamad Al-Arief, said that there should be several 
electoral areas to accommodate overseas voters, spread throughout countries 
with large Indonesian communities.

Overseas electoral areas, he said, would generate more participation from 
Indonesian communities abroad at legislative and presidential elections. 

“For the diaspora, we could have easily been selfish and thought only of 
ourselves, but we chose to contribute to Indonesia,” he said. 

“When Jakarta was hit with flooding problems, our diaspora in the Netherlands 
offered a solution ... facilitating the transfer of knowledge with water 
experts in the Netherlands,” he added. “There are so many problems beleaguering 
our country and we want to be a part of the solution.”

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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