Government gives support to election watchdog

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja and Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Responding to increasing demands for the establishment of an independent institution to monitor elections, Minister of Home Affairs Hari Sabarno said on Friday that he supported a proposal to establish an independent group to supervise the 2004 general elections.

"We need to establish such an independent supervising body as all government activities should be supervised and so as to fulfill public accountability requirements," the minister said.

In the general elections bill prepared by the ministry, the government wanted the General Elections Commission (KPU), which is tasked with organizing elections, to also supervise them.

But after incessant criticism directed against the bill, which assigns the KPU a supervisory role, Hari said he agreed that it would be difficult for the KPU to organize the elections and at the same time supervise them.

Moreover, the KPU has only 11 independent members.

There have been some suggestions that in carrying out supervision, the KPU should be helped by representatives of the political parties. But then, Hari contended it would be difficult to find an objective party members to join the supervisory committee, so the job should be handled by independent people.

"We have to determine now whether the supervisory duties should be given to the KPU or to a new team consisting of independent people with no political interests," Hari remarked.

The government and the House of Representatives are currently debating the bill. But the discussions have not yet got as far as article 125 on general election supervision.

Article 125 gives the authority to the KPU to supervise elections, receive complaints from the public, investigate violations of electoral regulations and submit investigation reports to state prosecutors.

This clause has been the target of criticism as it gives the KPU authority to monitor its own work.

Major factions in the House want election monitoring to be handled by an independent body.

The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), United Development Party (PPP), and the National Awakening Party (PKB) have all called for the establishment of an independent monitoring body.

Only the Reform faction, wants to retain election monitoring as the job of the KPU.

The Coalition for Election Laws, which has continuously campaigned for the setting up of an independent body to supervise elections, suggested that the government and the House should set out clear rules on supervision.

"There must be clear rules on complaints, their substance, the violators, and the procedures involved in the legal process," said Todung Mulya Lubis, an activist with the coalition.

Bambang Widjojanto of the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro) concurred, saying that there must be clear rules governing the election monitoring body.

He emphasized that the monitoring body should be granted the authority to resolve election disputes or violations, and hand down punishments.

Bambang said that violations can be divided into administrative violations, which could be resolved by the monitoring body, and crimes that should be brought to court.

Both Todung and Bambang cautioned that a lack of clear rules on punishments would only revive the practices of the 1999 elections in which many electoral violations were left unpunished.