53% of potential voters don't know election date

Moch. N. Kurniawan and Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Just 30 days ahead of the April 5 legislative election, only 47 percent of the country's population is actually aware of that date, according to a survey by the International Foundation for Election System (IFES) and the Polling Center.

The survey, published on Friday, revealed that of the 53 percent who did not know the date, 28 percent had no idea, 14 percent gave the wrong answer and 11 percent knew there would be an election but did not know when.

The survey polled people from all 32 provinces with 1,000 respondents interviewed from Jan. 26 to Feb. 1 and 1,000 others from Feb. 1 to Feb. 6.

"That survey, however, has yet to consider the impact of the new advertisements, with info about the dates for both legislative and presidential elections. The ad was launched in mid-February," explained General Elections Commission (KPU) member Valina Singka Subekti.

The survey, presented by Polling Center Managing Director Yanti B. Sugarda, said that 60 percent of respondents simply punched their favorite political parties and only 19 percent punched both the party and the individual candidates in the legislative election.

It also said 45 percent of respondents already knew about the Regional Representative Council (DPD).

Public ignorance was also reflected in the 20 simulations held in Jakarta since Jan. 13. Evaluations from those simulations, focusing on poorly educated voters, showed that 20 percent of the voters failed to cast the votes properly.

Member of the Jakarta General Election Commission (KPUD), Juri Ardiantoro, said would-be voters were still confused with the ballot paper's new forms, which were completely different from the old ones.

The size of the ballot papers are much larger as now they carry symbols of 24 parties and photographs of all legislative candidates. In the 1999 election, the ballot papers only had the symbols of 48 participating political parties.

"We always explain to the people how to vote properly before simulations, but they still make mistakes," he said.

Most of the mistakes were because people only punched legislative candidates photographs or they punched political party symbols and then candidates from different parties. Some of them did not punch anything on their ballot papers.

The general elections law stipulates that voting will be valid only if a voter punches a party symbol or both the party and its legislative candidate's photograph.

Juri said KPUD also organized simulations in the city's 262 subdistricts since Feb. 21 and the result showed that the mistake level was only 5 percent. However, he admitted that the simulations in subdistrict offices would reflect a readiness of the election organizers instead of the voters understanding on the voting procedures.