Komodo Out of Favor With Voters in 7 Wonders Polling

C'mon Indonesia, get those votes in! I read this article in the Jakarta Globe recently.

Indonesia’s Komodo Island is currently sitting at 26th place on the list of 28 finalists in a competition to name the seven natural wonders of the world, a tourism official said.

“Among international votes, over the past four weeks, Komodo has only been able to reach a 60.28 percent support level, ranking it at 26 of the 28 finalists,” said Ubaldus Gogi, the head of promotions at the East Nusa Tenggara tourism office.

The New7Wonders competition ranks the entries according to how many votes they receive from outside of their country of origin.

Speaking in Kupang on Sunday, Ubaldus said that the two finalists coming in below Komodo were Jeju Island in South Korea and the Sundarbans mangrove forest, which is located between Bangladesh and India.

Topping the votes was Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, with 99.96 percent of its votes coming from outside of the country.

Rounding out the top three were the Mud Volcanos of Azerbaijan, and the Galapagos Islands.

Ubaldus said that rankings continued to change with time and Komodo could still hope to get more votes before the seven finalists are named at the end of the year.

He called on all Indonesians to campaign both at home and overseas to gather support for Komodo in the New7Wonders poll.

“The organizers are targeting a total of one billion votes for this event, so we should aim to get at least 200 million votes for Komodo,” Ubaldi said.

On Friday, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said he would also take part in promoting Komodo. He said he would call for more votes during National Press Day celebrations in Kupang on Feb. 9.

The first round of the competition narrowed the list of 440 participants down to a shortlist of 77 entries. After a public online vote the list was again whittled down to just 28. The winner of the contest will be announced on Nov. 11.

The tourism ministry estimated that 25 percent of Indonesians who had access to the Internet had voted for the national park.

Antara.

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