CETRO warns of messy election preparations
Arya Abhiseka, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Center for Electoral Reform (CETRO) warned on Saturday that scheduling next year's election for an earlier date had undermined preparation efforts and could jeopardize the quality of the election.
CETRO executive director Hadar Gumay criticized the General Elections Commission's (KPU) decision to move the election date from June 2004 to April 5, 2004.
The move, he said, would shorten the time for political parties to identify strong candidates after the registration period expired this December.
"A number of elements of the election are becoming questionable and could make for a lack of quality as a result of KPU's shorter preparation time," Hadar said on Saturday.
Among the shortcomings already felt, he said, was the massive task of voter registration, characterized by shortages of registration forms in several provinces and registration difficulties due to ill-trained officers.
The country will hold its first ever direct presidential election following the amendment to the 1945 Constitution last year.
The KPU is in charge of organizing the general elections which could see as many as 130 million voters participating. It initially set a June election date, expecting the presidential and legislative elections be held simultaneously.
This scenario would leave enough time for a separate election of the regional legislatures, and if necessary, for a second- round of presidential voting, if no clear-cut winner comes out of the first round.
However, under the new election law, the presidential election will be held after the combined election of the national and regional legislative elections.
The drawback is that it could require three consecutive elections.
There is a fear that the nation could be left leaderless for a time since President Megawati Soekarnoputri's presidency cannot legally go beyond October 2004, and with the massive logistics job of running and tabulating three sets of elections with 130 million voters in a matter of months, the KPU decided to change the election date to April 2004 from June 2004.
Consequently, preparations will be shortened by two months.
CETRO's Hadar said it would be better to extend Megawati's presidency than to jeopardize the quality of the election results by trying to rush everything.
He said that political parties also would have less than four months, from the completion of the registration process in December until the legislative election on April 5, to select their candidates and do all their campaigning.
During that period, parties must have a complete list of candidates for the House of Representatives (DPR), each provincial council, regency council and city council.
"Four months is a short period to determine the quality of the legislative candidates," said Hadar.
He also pointed to problems faced by the tight deadline under which KPU must establish some 400 offices across provinces, regencies and cities. All of the KPU regional offices must become fully operational by the end of May 2003.
"There have been reports from our people in the regions that those who work at the regional KPU offices are doing it just for the sake of having a job," he said.
He also questioned the quality of nominees who would sit on the general election's supervisory committee.
KPU member Hamid Awaluddin said the preparation period could be extended if need be.
On the supervisory committee, Hamid said that KPU could also make stricter requirements for selection or add more candidates to its list.
"We will decide in our plenary meeting on Monday to discuss if we should add more candidates for the committee if the current candidates fail to meet the commission's selection criteria," he said over the weekend.
The supervisory committee is an independent body that will monitor the entire process of the general election including the ballot counting.