General election monitors deplore restricted access

General election monitors deplore restricted access

A. Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A number of non-governmental organizations condemned on Tuesday
the General Elections Commission (KPU)'s recent decision to ban
election monitors from entering polling stations.

"The credibility of the upcoming elections will be low if the
KPU only provides restricted access to the monitors," said Smita
Notosusanto of the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro).

Besides Cetro, the Student Network for Indonesian Election
Monitoring (JAMPPI) and the People's Voter Education Network
(JPPR) also criticized KPU Ruling No. 2/2004, which places
restrictions on access for monitors, among other things. The
three have applied to the KPU to be allowed to monitor the
elections.

The KPU has distributed posters showing model polling stations
in which voluntary election monitors are shown outside the
polling stations. The posters also state that they will be barred
from entering.

Smita argued that as a result the volunteers would be unable
to properly monitor the election process.

"It will be difficult to spot any errors during the election
process," she said.

Wahidah Suaib of JAMPPI agreed with Smita, and urged the KPU
to revoke its ruling.

Wahidah said the situation was better during the 1999 general
election as volunteer monitors were allowed to closely scrutinize
the polls.

"Allowing monitoring teams to watch elections is the norm in
democratic countries," she said.

She rejected suggestions that having monitors inside the
polling stations would disrupt the election process, saying that
the different monitoring teams would synchronize their work so as
to avoid any overlapping.

She said the KPU seemed to have discounted the role played by
monitors in ensuring fair and free elections despite the fact
that the accommodation of monitors was required under Law No.
12/2003 on general elections.

"The KPU should be thanking us as they have no people at the
grassroots level," said Wahidah, who claimed that her
organization has 30,000 volunteers in 129 municipalities and
regencies.

Cetro claimed that it had the capacity to monitor elections
in 39 local government jurisdictions in 12 provinces while the
JPPR said it had 141,000 volunteers in 31 provinces.

The elections to the House of Representatives and Regional
Representatives Council (DPD) will be held on April 5, while the
first round of the presidential election will be held on July 5
and the second on Sept. 20.

Hadar Gumay of Cetro said that they had frequently requested
the KPU to be allowed to closely monitor the election process.

"The KPU frequently promised to permit this, but this ruling
goes in the opposite direction," Hadar said.

He suggested that the ruling had probably not been discussed
by all the KPU members as many of them were not aware of it,
including Mulyana W, Kusuma, who was closely involved in election
monitoring in the past.