JPPR, JAKARTA--The Jakarta branch of the Elections Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu Jakarta) has begun a series of thorough evaluations of its own work for the gubernatorial election, which will head to a second round in September.
Panwaslu Jakarta chairman Ramdansyah said his organization would begin with internal evaluation meetings this week with the committee’s provincial-level members.
“We will later hold evaluation meetings with our officials at the municipal level, district level and so on,” Ramdansyah told reporters at his office in Central Jakarta.
Panwaslu Jakarta hopes to complete the evaluations by mid August.
A second round has been scheduled for Sept. 20 after none of the six candidates competing in the July 11 election won more than 50 percent of the vote.
The runoff will see Surakarta Mayor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, who won the most votes in the election, squares off against incumbent Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo, who finished second.
Endang Wihdatiningtyas, a member of the General Elections Monitoring Body (Bawaslu), said that in order to effectively evaluate their work, Panwaslu Jakarta must first elaborate on what they had done from the beginning of the election process.
“They have to give details on everything they have done, both related to election preparation and those which are not,” Endang said.
Endang listed that among the important questions to address were the extent to which the local poll supervisor investigated election-related violation reports, the extent to which proven violations had been addressed through the legal process and what preventative measures Panwaslu Jakarta had taken against violations of election regulations.
Other areas Panwaslu Jakarta should evaluate, Endang said, were alleged irregularities in candidates’ campaign finance reports, election logistics procurement and distribution, and the poll supervisor’s coordination both internally and with other institutions.
Previously, the poll supervisor had announced that most of the reports of alleged election irregularities it received were related to troubles with the voters’ roll, as many people complained that they were not listed as eligible voters despite their possession of proper identification documents.
A number of election monitoring NGOs pointed out that the Panwaslu Jakarta still had a lot of room for improvement.
Abdullah Dahlan, a political corruption researcher at Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW), said that the poll supervisor was still unable to bring violations forward for thorough legal processing.
“We have yet to see any verdict issued for election-related violations. A clear verdict or closure of a case would be a proof to the public that their reporting of alleged violation was not a waste of time,” Abdullah said.
Yusfitriadi of the People’s Voters Education Network (JPRR) said that Panwaslu Jakarta should also help educate people on money politics and other election violations. “If they fully understand what constitutes an election violation it would help to prevent the violations from happening in the first place and it would also help poll supervisor build stronger cases against proven violations.”
Titi Anggraini, executive director for the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem), recommended Panwaslu Jakarta to focus on voters’ roll revisions and “SARA” topics — suku (ethnicity), agama (religion), ras (race) and antargolongan (intergroup relations).
The Jakarta branch of the General Elections Commission (KPU Jakarta) has been ordered to revise its voter list, allowing eligible but unregistered residents to use their voting rights in the September runoff.
Jakartans who are eligible to vote but did not get the chance to do so in the election because their names did not appear on the electoral roll are allowed to register for the runoff from July 25 to July 29.
Source: Jakarta Post, 26 Juli 2012
Repost: Jaringan Pendidikan Pemilih untuk Rakyat (JPPR)
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