Europe sending observers for the elections

Europe sending observers for the elections

JAKARTA (JP): The European Union (EU) will send 120 observers
to watch over the June 7 election in the country, the head of the
mission said on Thursday.

EU chief observer John Gwyn Morgan told a media conference
that the European Community wished "to assist Indonesia in
holding a free, fair and transparent election process".

Some 130 million people will go to the polls to elect 462
legislators of the House of Representatives (DPR). The remaining
38 House seats have been reserved for military and police,
according to the elections law passed late in February.

Morgan said that 30 of the observers arrived last week and had
been deployed to 13 provinces. They will stay there between 45
and 75 days to monitor the whole electoral process until the
final vote tallies are published.

Areas where the European observers would be based include the
state capital, Yogyakarta, Semarang, Surabaya, Medan, Pekanbaru,
Padang, Palembang, Bandar Lampung, Denpasar, Sumbawa, Samarinda
and Ujungpandang.

Morgan said another group of 90 observers will arrive May 29
and will be on duty for some 15 days on or around election day.

He added that there will be a total of 350 foreign observers
to watch over the elections.

Morgan acknowledged EU's limitations in planning for the
monitoring process and accepted that it would need to rely on
information from domestic poll watchdogs.

"We have a problem because of the sheer size of Indonesia. To
cover Indonesia and say we had a feel for how the election really
went could not be done with the number of observers we have on
our team," Morgan said.

"We could not, of course, cover anything like enough ground,"
he said.

With 350 foreign observers, there will be one for every
371,000 voters in the elections.

Morgan said that the EU has made available an approximate
US$7.7 million support package, which has been channeled through
the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

"The deployment of the observers will be closely coordinated
with other international observer groups in order to maximize
impact and the geographical spread of the international
observation as a whole," he said.

Former U.S. ambassador to Indonesia Paul Wolfowitz said last
month that the Washington-based International Republican
Institute (IRI) would probably send around 30 or 35 observers.

He added that the Democratic Party would also send a
delegation of about 40 to 50 observers led by former U.S.
president Jimmy Carter.

Separately, in the West Sumatra capital of Padang, Antara
reported that two Australian observers conducted preelection
monitoring jobs from Monday to Wednesday. (byg)