Foreigners invited to see polls
JAKARTA (JP): The government is breaking new ground in the May general election by allowing foreigners to observe the polls.
Minister of Home Affairs Moch. Yogie S.M., who also chairs the General Election Institute, guaranteed yesterday that foreign observers will have free access to monitor the various stages of the election, including visiting the polling booths on May 29.
"We will invite neighboring and foreign countries to monitor the election," Yogie told reporters after chairing a meeting to endorse the final candidate lists from the three contesting parties who will run for the House of Representatives.
Yogie did not name the countries to be invited.
This is the first time that the government has officially declared the general election open to foreign observers.
The minister reminded the press to remain objective in their coverage of the election so as not to mislead foreign observers.
"Just write the facts. Otherwise, foreigners get different and negative impressions of our election process," he said.
The decision to allow foreign or independent observers appears to be a concession to the minority parties, who in the previous election, complained about irregularities in the way the polls were conducted.
The United Development Party (PPP) and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) are contesting the election against the mighty Golkar, which is vying for another landslide victory.
The government has given the cold shoulder to last year's establishment of the Independent Election Monitoring Committee by a group of activists who are bent on ensuring a clean and fair election. The committee is headed by Goenawan Mohamad, editor of the now-banned Tempo news weekly.
Falling short of outlawing the committee, the government warned it against trying to disrupt the election and the ballot counting on May 29.
Yogie said he was confident that the election would proceed smoothly, and appealed to people to share his optimism.
"We have enough experience in organizing the general election. This will be our sixth election," he said, referring to the number of times that Indonesia has held general elections during the New Order administration of President Soeharto.
Indonesia held one general election during the time of Sukarno, Indonesia's first president, in 1955.
Commenting on PPP's demands to review the electoral rules, particularly the guidelines on election campaigning, Yogie dismissed them as impossible.
"They are final. They were drawn up with the agreement of the three political contestants," he said. "It's nonsense if some contestants are now questioning the guidelines," he added.
Golkar, PPP and PDI are vying for 425 of the 500 House seats. The remaining 75 seats will be allocated to the Armed Forces, whose members do not vote.
The election institute endorsed yesterday the lists of candidates from the three contestants after the public were given more than one month to scrutinize the names.
Four names in Golkar were withdrawn, to bring the total to 825 candidates. Three withdrew voluntarily and one was dropped because of questionable moral integrity.
PPP's final list of 716 candidates is also four short of the original list -- three would-be candidates died during the scrutinizing time and one had withdrawn.
PDI's list of 744 candidates remained unchanged.
On election funding for the contestants, Yogie promised that the money would soon be disbursed to the three parties. "But I don't know exactly how much or when it will be given out," he said.
Both PPP and PDI have said they are running out of money and could not prepare the election campaigns thoroughly if the government did not distribute the promised funds quickly.
The election campaign officially begins April 27. (imn)
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