A day when trusts are being compromised. Or worse, sold.

I went to the election booth yesterday. My first trip to an election booth. And there I was, standing dumbfoundedly and not knowing what to do. Or who to choose. There were these three BIG pages consisting names and pictures of the politicians that would be representing my area at provincial level. But let me stop you here. 

The election in Indonesia is like no other countries. Let's just take the newest election celebrated, the United States' election. Unlike US, we have not only two parties but we have total of 44 parties. Yes, fourty-freaking-four parties. At least, that is so much that I know of. Try inserting a keyword to get a glimpse of the so-called political campaigns in Indonesia. Unlike US' organized political campaigns, we have no idea when the campaign had started and suddenly the Election Day has come. Now, do we know all of the names of the parties? No. Do we care to know? No. Do they make any attempt of letting us know who they are? Hell no.

I went inside, still didn't have the slightest idea what to choose. I admit, I might not be paying attention to the election campaigns like I should have. But I have an argument. I don't find any campaign interesting enough for me to watch or to follow. There were so many posters everywhere, dangling and hanging at every corner of the country. Unknown faces, crappy designs, lousy typos and none of them offer promising campaign. None of them even had the decent intelligence of a politician campaigning for power. All were radiating the same message: I'm becoming a legislative because this position offers huge pay and easy tasks, so just like everyone else, I couldn't resist. Help me on getting a lot of money. Pick me! They even have Gandalf in their posters!

So what exactly are we doing here? We treat Election Day just like any other national holiday. We walk into the election booth, not knowing what to choose (for most of us) and that's why they have the posters and the big list of parties. Because they KNOW we won't know what to choose. It's like advertising a product. You've seen the advertisements on TV and you are obliged to buy a product. So you walk into the supermarket and the last thing that determines your choice is the packaging of your product. We sought for the best names, maybe the one that suits your religion or your ethnicity, or the best face. The prettiest woman or the most handsome man. This happens. This really happens.

Call me cynical, but I am one of those many citizens who feel like this whole election is just a childish game which must be conducted solely because it's time, and filled by people who could care less about the nation's prosperity. This disgusts me. Maybe among these people, there are some folks who really want to make a difference. But they should've made more attempt to show their good intention. They should've made themselves heard. They should've made us see. But they didn't. So wherever we, the poor citizens, go, we only see lousy posters with ugly faces, asking for votes they don't even deserve.

Obama was there too, if you must know.

You know, I read an article in a fashion magazine few days ago. It's about sex. And I bumped into a good line, "Sex without love is like a promise you can't keep." That sentence struck a chord inside me and only God knows why for I don't even know why. When I was faced with almost a hundred choices at the election booth, I couldn't help but recall the line. I said to myself, "This is like sex without love. It's like a promise you know you can't keep. And hell, you don't even promise."

What I hate so much from this election is that they demand trust so fiercely we don't even realize it. They don't bother to give us anything, not even a promise. Or maybe if they do give us a promise, they still don't present us any implementation real enough to make us believe their promises aren't false hopes. In their campaigns, they don't talk about the future. They talk about the current conditions. The poor farmers and the children not being able to go to school. They talk about their past years of governance. They talk about the rising of global oil price and their past attempts in lowering it. (Not their REAL attempts because we all know they intentionally raised the national oil price so high so that they could lower them three times back to normal). They talk about the past, the good things they've done that make them deserve to rule once again. They talk about the present, a condition everyone are so much aware of. None of them mentions the future. 

So we all walk into the booth, our trust demanded, and in the end of day, when promises aren't kept and things got worse, we have no one to blame but ourselves. After all, if things get worse, it's not their fault. They didn't promise us anything, right?

Like an old popular saying goes, "Trust cannot be given. It must be earned."

I love this country. So much and perhaps more than some other citizens out there. But painfully I have to admit that I think, a better era would finally (hopefully) come to this country, if one day this nation's government understands the depth of this line's meaning.

P.S. By the way, no offense to those who really follow the campaigns and choose their trusted representatives. I'm just speaking from the majority part.

P.P.S. If you're choosing the current government, the Democrat, just because that's the only party you know of, then you're most certainly with me.