Bali Gubernatorial Election
On June 27th, 2018, multiple Indonesian local elections took place across Indonesia at the same time. Indonesian citizens went to polling stations to elect altogether 17 governors, 39 mayors and 115 regents spread across the country.Â
In Bali, gubernatorial elections were held to replace the current governor, Made Mangku Pastika, who was in charge for 10 years for two consecutive terms. The two candidates were Wayan Koster, member of the People’s Representative Council since 2014 and Ida Bagus Rai Dharmawijaya Mantra, mayor of Denpasar since 2008.Â
To run as a party for the gubernatorial election you have to hold at least 20% of the seats at the Provincial Legislative Council of Bali (DPRD) and only one candidate per party can stand in the election. Wayan Koster represented the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) whereas Ida Bagus Rai Dharmawijaya Mantra belonged to the People’s Coalition of Bali (KRB) gathering different parties: Golkar, NasDem, Democrat and Gerindra.
The government declared June 27th, 2018 as a national public holiday to allow people to go to the polling stations. In Bali, for the gubernatorial elections, 2.147.380 went to vote, which represents 72% of the voting population. Â
The quick counts made by different parties hand the election to Wayan Koster with over 1 million votes whereas Mantra reached around 880 thousand of votes.