Foreign observers or tourists?

By Hermawan Sulistyo

JAKARTA (JP); General elections in countries undergoing democratization are often, if not always, marred by cheating and structural violations. To minimize the degree of violations, and hence to increase the quality of democratization, many countries open their doors to foreign observers to help monitor the elections. The recent Indonesian elections are not an exception. For a variety of reasons, ranging from high hopes that fair elections would guarantee a return of international confidence for new business investments, to external pressures, the government not only opened its doors, but even invited some observers from various countries to monitor the 1999 elections.

Foreign observers are an additional force, and an effective one, to their domestic counterparts. Lacking expertise on election monitoring -- only the Independent Election Monitoring Committee (KIPP) had experience with the 1997 elections -- many, if not most domestic and local organizations warmly received these more experienced foreign observers. But there were also some negative aspects to their presence here.

Domestic monitoring committees adopt different checklists. The Rectors Forum uses a longer list of items to fill (over 70 items), while KIPP uses a shorter checklist. The first checklist, however, does not include open-ended questions, and is therefore easier to count violations in matrices, while the second checklist, though harder to tabulate, has open-ended items and therefore provides a narrative of incidents.

Most foreign observers do not reveal their standard checklists to their domestic and local counterparts. It is understandable, since they use their checklists more for internal purposes. But without agreed parameters concerning the democratic degree of fairness and justice of election processes, these foreign observers add to the potential of conflicting results from domestic observers. A recent KIPP statement on the excessive number of violations uncovered over 120,000 cases. This factor, together with the refusal of political parties to agree on results of the count in various places, are only counter- propositions against a premature statement issued by the Carter Center one day after the ballot that the elections were relatively fair and democratic.

The focus of foreign observers on the electoral process was one reason, among several put forward, that overseas poll watchers arrived at a "better conclusion". Foreign observers paid attention only to the degree of violations during the campaign period and on the ballot day. Most, if not all foreign observers left their observation areas after counting of votes at the polling place, or TPS, the site of the lowest level of counting. Above this level are four more stages which add the results from counting at the first level. These adding processes occur at the village (PPS), subdistrict (PPK), regency or mayoralty (PPD II) and provincial (PPD I) levels. Reports have shown that cheating mostly took place at these four levels, not at polling places.

My own field experience in South Sulawesi confirmed the potential for cheating during the counting process above the polling place level and below the provincial result level. Several factors contributed to this potential for deception. Police were not assigned to guard and protect ballot boxes after the materials were brought to the PPS, PPK, PPD II and PPD I. All active participants at the polling places were exhausted after the ballot; some TPS did not finish their count until late in the night. The number of local volunteer poll watchers was inadequate to monitor count results from polling places during the four stages. Foreign observers left the areas after they found relatively fair voting practices. Finally, domestic observers had no access to data transferred by election committees using the BRI banking system.

Adding to the complicated implications arising from premature statements made by foreign observers, was their very presence. A team of foreign observers in South Sulawesi sparked local controversy over the role of foreign observers. Local poll watch volunteers alleged that at least two observers abused their monitoring powers. The reported acts of impropriety included borrowing and using mobile phones of local volunteers, using telephone and computer facilities at the local monitoring office, and requesting data before collecting their own field data. The KIPP local office later barred the observers from observing. Forbes, or Forum Bersama, a group of journalists working for various media also reported similar incidents; they also rejected the presence of these two foreign observers.

There were also discouraging reports about foreign observers wishing to monitor the elections in Tana Toraja and Malino, two tourist resort areas. It was reported that the observers requested the local office of a monitoring committee pay their hotel bills. The demands allegedly created an uneasy environment, as the observers told local volunteers that their domestic counterparts received international funding. On one night, a reporter even claimed to have seen a car with the logo of a monitoring team parked on Jalan Nusantara, a red-light district in Ujungpandang. Some local volunteers said, "Every time they are here, all they do is cut their nails and disturb our work because they are using our computer."

Money is a crucial issue. Different volunteer deployment systems adopted by local monitoring committees have caused serious problems. KIPP adopted a system of local recruitment and thus bore reduced transportation costs, while the other two monitoring committees -- the Rectors Forum and Unfrel -- dispatched volunteers from big cities. After comparing their honoraria, a KIPP volunteer received Rp 25,000 or less than four dollars, while volunteers from other committees received several times more than this amount. Some KIPP volunteers protested to their local boards, accusing the boards of cutting their honorarium. Adding to the inconsistencies was a perception on the conditions that foreign observers worked under. Foreign observers stayed in fancy hotels and rented (or bought?) comfortable cars.

Foreign observers definitely had their own motives in monitoring the 1999 elections. The motives could be philanthropic: that this is an important time for the fourth largest country in the world to take necessary steps toward a democratic society. Other motives might include financial, or even for the adventure. They came, stayed for a while (sometimes even a week), watched the elections, enjoyed luxurious trips and told us whether the elections had been performed properly or not. Now, some of these "political tourists" have returned home, or probably gone to another monitoring project in another country, while we still have to deal with demands for reelections in some constituencies.

The writer is executive director of the Research Institute for Democracy and Peace. (RIDeP).