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.