Democracy and Political Consciousness Investigating Difabel Toward Political Participation in the 2014 Presidential Election in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

摘要

Every citizen has right to choose and to participate in the general election, and the state must protect this basic right of politics. The high percentage of people with a different ability (difabel) participated in the 2014 presidential election in Yogyakarta (66,5%) indicated the remarkable work of inclusive democracy in this city. Community participation is the main barometer to measure how the democracy is meaningful. This paper aims to explain the group of difabel responses electoral process in Yogyakarta towards democratic space provided by Local General Election Commissions (KPUD). This narrative research was conducted through interview and documentation which consists of several stakeholders, such as Election Commissions of Yogyakarta city, SIGAB, and difabel groups. By conducting field research, there are two main findings of this study. First, difabel community competences in responding the existence of participation space in Yogyakarta city was influenced by the awareness level, these are semi intransitive, naive transitivity and critical consciousness. In Yogyakarta, difabel groups will gain stronger power in encouraging an enhancement of general election implementation, when they had critical consciousness. Second, the critical participation of difabel categories was not only giving a votes contribution (voters) or become an object in an electoral process, but they were considered as a subject by participating in election time, for instances, they decided to be team members of democratic volunteers and voting committee officers. Moreover, disabled communities also did political practices as the manifestation of their political consciousness level.