Candidates may be disqualified
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
With 30 percent of Jakarta's legislative candidates facing possible disqualification, doubts are emerging as to just how qualified the Jakarta Provincial Elections Commission (KPUD) and its supervisory committee (Panwaslu) are to do its job.
"At least 60 percent or more than 900 candidates failed to submit the required documents by the deadline on Dec. 29. After we called them one by one, we found half of them could not present valid documents," said the KPUD chairman, Mohamad Taufik, on Tuesday.
"For example, KPUD decided that two candidates must be excluded from the list because they were only 19 years old while eight candidates have used fake medical records from Fatmawati hospital. We have also been told by many schools that the certificates we are checking are not valid," he said.
Law No. 12/2003 on general elections and KPU regulations stipulate that all candidates must be 21 years old or above to be elected as representatives. They must be certified as healthy and should be senior high school graduates. They must also have a valid Jakarta identity card.
KPUD will wait until Jan. 19 to decide whether these candidates are qualified. If the candidates fail to qualify then the parties will have to propose new names to the KPU before Jan. 27, after which the KPUD will announce the list of eligible candidates for the 24 political parties contesting the polls.
KPUD spokesman, Hamdan Rasyid, said that most of the parties had failed to fulfill the quota for woman candidates.
"Most parties have submitted lists with only 10 percent to 15 percent of woman candidates. Many parties believe they do not have to comply with the 30 percent quota by law. So far, only the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and Indonesian Justice and Unity Party (PKPI) have fulfilled the quota," he said.
A survey by the Voice of Justice group (Suaka) charged that the KPUD had neglected the voting rights of Jakarta's marginalized groups such as street vendors, laborers, scavengers, the unemployed people and housewives by concentrating only on the middle to higher income groups.
The survey said that 92 percent of the 410 respondents were not aware that there had been a change in the electoral law while 93 percent did not understand how to vote. Most of them, 86 percent, did not know the KPUD existed and almost 90 percent did not understand its function.
Taufik rejected the survey, saying that KPUD had done many things to promote the Elections Law and regulations up to the subdistrict level, but admitted that the voting mechanism would be promoted this month.
"We promoted the essence of the Election Law and regulations up until December. We'll promote how to vote starting this month," he said.
A trainer for the Jakarta Elections Supervisory Committee (Panwasluda), the only agency that has the authority to supervise the KPUD, Rusdin Moh. Nur, said that Panwaslu personnel had difficulties in enforcing the regulations on electoral violations, such as campaign violations and conflict resolution.
"They can understand the meaning of the articles in the law but have difficulties in matching violations with the relevant articles," he said.