Merangkai SinoLogika: Bunga Rampai - Christine Susanna Tjhin

Inside Indonesia 95 - Jan-Mar 2009 edition.  As the 2009 national elections approach, Chinese Indonesians face a paradox. While most Chinese Indonesians do not wish to position themselves as an exclusive ethnic-based political grouping, major parties have done little beside talk about addressing the social discrimination that Chinese Indonesians face.  Ethnic-based political parties had little success in the 1999 and 2004 national elections as the Chinese Indonesian Reform Party and the Indonesian Bhinneka Tunggal Ika Party failed to garner community support. The Chinese Indonesian vote was spread across nationalist secular parties. Some Chinese Indonesians didn’t bother to vote at all. Since the resumption of democratic elections in Indonesia in 1999, candidates of ethnic Chinese descent have stood in both national and local elections and their level of participation in campaigns and in public debates has increased. Fewer than 50 Chinese Indonesian candidates stood in th...