Early SE Sulawesi campaigns prompt protest from public
Early SE Sulawesi campaigns prompt protest from public
Hasrul, The Jakarta Post, Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi
Despite a law that prohibits early campaigning, party paraphernalia such as flags, banners and posters are still seen hanging across streets in at least one municipality and two regencies in Southeast Sulawesi province. The municipality and regencies in question are Kendari municipality and South Konawe and Muna regencies.
The clear violation of the Elections Law has not been dealt with yet by the Southeast Sulawesi Election Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu), prompting the public, including activists from local non-governmental organizations, to protest.
The secretary-general of the South Konawe regency's Independent Election Monitoring Committee (KIPP), Kisran Makati, for example, lambasted Panwaslu for its negligence.
"The rampant violation of the Elections Law shows the weak supervision of Panwaslu. The provincial or regental Panwaslu should have taken stern measures against those political parties that violated the law," he said on Monday.
A similar complaint was also filed by Muammar Khadafi, an activist with the Indonesian Self Reliant Community (Swami) in Muna regency. Muammar questioned the commitment of Panwaslu members in maintaining fairness in the general election.
Separately, Arif Rachman, a member of Southeast Sulawesi Panwaslu, said that Panwaslu had actually called on political parties not to start campaigning early since last December.
He acknowledged that many political parties had ignored the instruction, as could be seen by the huge number of banners and flags in cities in Southeast Sulawesi.
But, he quickly promised that Panwaslu would immediately issue circulars to the political parties to remove party paraphernalia from the streets, and if they again ignored it, Panwaslu would bring the cases to the police for further investigation.
Regarding the criticism from the public, Arif said that the Panwaslu accepted it.
"It is part of the dynamics of democracy," he said.
Besides party paraphernalia, putting ads on the local television stations and in the print media had also been the concern of NGO activists.
Several candidates for the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) representing North Sulawesi have put ads in the print and broadcast media, but no sanctions had been imposed on them.