Candidates only skillful in making promises: Watchdog

M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta

Despite many promises from the presidential candidates, there are crucial, current issues which they prefer to avoid, an independent election watchdog said.

With the month-long campaign period about to end on July 1, the Independent Election Monitoring Committee (KIPP) said that with all the "empty promises" aired by the five candidates there was little space left over for any contribution to political education.

"We want to hear what the candidates have to say about the state of civil emergency in the strife-torn Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam and whether they would lift it. Or in the decentralization (autonomy) issue, we'd like to hear whether or not they agree with a direct election for local leaders," KIPP executive director, Ray Rangkuti said.

Echoing other observers, he said that all the promises of eradicating corruption, for instance, lacked elaboration as to how the next government was planning to do it.

He added that there were no indicators that could be used to gauge whether or not the candidates had succeeded in carrying out what they promised, should they be elected in the poll.

"What are the consequences if they do not keep their promises? Nothing," he said.

Ray called on the candidates to come up with concrete programs to resolve a myriad of problems afflicting the country when they met supporters in the remaining days of the campaign.

Earlier, non-governmental organization, the Institute for Democracy Studies (LKaDe) also criticized presidential candidates for the unrealistic promises they have made during the first three weeks of public campaigning.

Political analyst Yudi Latif of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) said the candidates' penchant for making empty promises had resulted in the low attendance at most public campaign events.

"What's the use of going to the campaign if the public already knows what the candidates will say about problems they are dealing with?" Yudi said.