Economist warns fair election difficult in economic crisis

JAKARTA (JP): Noted senior economist Sarbini Sumawinata said it was hard to imagine the realization of fair and free elections in the midst of widespread difficulties in buying inexpensive food.

Antara quoted him on Thursday as saying that economic recovery should be the main agenda at least until the end of the year.

"Elections don't necessarily mean building as many political parties as possible, but it requires people to be prepared," he told a discussion in Surabaya. "Would the people be able to survive until the end of 1998?" he said.

"If things get worse, given the estimate by the ILO (International Labor Organization) of 140 million poor people, two out of three people will be poor, so a fair election would be difficult to realize," Sarbini said, referring to elections slated for May 1999.

The ILO had predicted in its report last month that without any improvement in the economy about 140 million or 66 percent of the population will be living below the poverty line.

Observers have raised concern of the increasingly higher potential of vote buying particularly targeting the poor.

Mulyana W. Kusumah, secretary general of the Independent Election Monitoring Committee (KIPP), said on Wednesday that one constraint in drawing up a work schedule for election monitoring was the uncertainty of the timing of elections given the crisis.

Following a conference on election monitoring, Mulyana said on Thursday that 847,000 volunteers were needed to cover 420 districts in the elections.

Mulyana was referring to districts as defined by the government draft law on elections, deliberation on which is scheduled to begin at the House of Representatives on Friday.

Among others, districts based on regencies from which legislators are elected have at the most 600,000 voters.

In last year's elections 124.7 million voters were registered, of which 110.9 million voted. The Committee said it still had the support of 9,000 volunteers in 47 cities and 14 provinces from last year's election and said at the most it would be able to gain 50 percent of the needed 847,000 volunteers.

Jakarta residents who are interested in participating as volunteers can register at KIPP's headquarters in Rawamangun, East Jakarta (Tel: 489-5982), Mulyana said.

Given KIPP's limited expectations of recruiting enough volunteers, Mulyana said other independent bodies might be needed to monitor the elections and also in the management of hundreds of thousands of volunteers.

KIPP, he said, started to recruit new volunteers last month. In Jakarta, 100 people registered within a month.

Among current programs, Mulyana said, until December this year KIPP, set up in 1996, was preparing educational programs for voters and studying more about political parties as part of its efforts to raise public political awareness. (01)