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)