Attorney General promises fair election
Attorney General promises fair election
JAKARTA (JP): Attorney General Singgih, who was appointed to head the Inspection Board of the National Election Committee last week, has promised equal treatment for all the three political parties contesting the general election in 1997.
"All the Committee members including myself have pledged to be fair and impartial. We will blow the whistle on any political party which violates the rules. If necessary the party will be taken to court," Singgih told the Antara news agency on Friday.
Singgih and the rest of the 15 Committee members were installed by President Soeharto on Thursday.
"Having made that pledge, we are answerable to God Almighty," he remarked.
It is up to political parties whether they want to set up their own inspection committees, Singgih said in response to an announcement by the United Development Party (PPP), that it will form its own committees to ensure no cheating.
Non-government committees would have to report their findings of any violations to the Central Inspection Board, he said.
PPP's plans were announced in October after party leaders in a meeting said that the 1992 election was fraught with violations, including in the vote count, by Golkar. These violations went unpunished, they said.
Several chapters of the PPP have threatened to boycott the 1997 elections unless there were assurances from the government that it will prosecute election cheats.
Golkar won the 1992 election with a convincing 68 percent of the total vote. PPP came a distant second with 17 percent and the Indonesian Democratic Party third with 15 percent.
Both PPP and PDI have repeated demands to include the phrase "honest and fair" into the electoral regulations. The current regulations underlined "direct, general, free and secret" balloting.
Singgih ensured that because the Committee's pledge included the obligation to play by the rules, this automatically means the members must ensure honest and fair practices regarding elections.
Besides, the 1985 Law on election already includes the phrase "honest and fair play", Singgih said.
Singgih said the Committee will act on any criminal practice in elections, but administrative and political violations are more "difficult to prove."
The Committee categorizes three kinds of violations: administrative, political and criminal.
Singgih cited as an example the charges by PPP and PDI that Golkar has been conducting pre-election campaign rallies, in violation of the electoral regulations.
"One party said this contestant has conducted campaigns, and the other says it has not , and that these rallies are just cadre meetings. That's difficult," Singgih said.
He said the committee in the past brought several people to court for criminal offenses such as destroying ballot boxes.
"But it is difficult to prove charges that a person voted twice or three times. How can we tell whose vote it is when it (ballot paper) is already inside the box?" he said.
Singgih also said that the elections are aimed to put democracy in practice.
Singgih said the elections must not turn into a "fiesta of democracy" filled with hostilities.
He also said that questions posed to him by foreign reporters about which provinces have experienced election violations, "are only aimed at sensationalist news," Antara reported.
"We are becoming increasingly mature," he said, "The fiesta of democracy will not be full of the tension that foreign reporters are expecting."
General elections should encourage greater mutual respect rather than create hostilities, he said. (anr)