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.