CETRO warns of messy election preparations
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.