Election Comittesays ready monitor legislative vote

Election Comittesays ready monitor legislative vote

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The 20,000-strong Election Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu) says
that it is ready to monitor the legislative vote on April 5 in
all districts across the country and ensure that no electoral
violations occurred.

Committee member Topo Santoso admitted on Wednesday, however,
that its network would only be able to monitor polling stations
and ballot counting committees as far down as the district level.

"To overcome the problem, we have signed agreements with a
number of election monitoring groups like Cetro, KIPP and the
Rectors Forum," he told The Jakarta Post.

Local monitoring groups, Topo added, had offered the poll body
hundreds of thousands of volunteers to monitor the poll and the
ballot count across the country.

If the groups find violations at the subdistrict level, all
they have to do is report them to the committee's monitors at the
district level, he explained.

"Our officials have the power to ask ballot counting
committees to repeat their counts should any violations be
detected," Topo said.

He said he was convinced that the committee's officers
understood their duties as all of them had undergone a two-month
orientation program.

"Currently, our offices are open 24 hours per day in case they
need our advice or they need to clarify something," Topo said.

The poll body had informed local monitoring groups about the
procedures for reporting violations. It had also warned them to
make sure that they did not just concentrate on easily accessible
polling stations and neglect those in remote or rural areas, he
said.

The committee would also work hand in hand with foreign
election monitors sponsored by a number of groups, Topo
explained, although it was still unclear whether the foreign
monitors would monitor all phases of the election.

"We will also brief them about our new electoral system so
that they know what to do as part of their monitoring work," he
commented.

According to Topo, several dozen overseas election observers
had already registered with the committee.