Incompetence caused poll delays: Observers

JAKARTA (JP): Delays in tallying the results of the June elections and disputes over vote-sharing agreements reflect the incompetence of poll organizers, official supervisors of the elections and political lecturers said on Thursday.

They said separately that the incompetence of both the General Elections Commission (KPU) and the National Elections Committee (PPI) was due to partisanship and a lack of technical skills.

Riswandha Imawan, who teaches at Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University, said the KPU and the PPI should not meddle too much in the selection of legislative candidates. "Let the parties decide on their candidates and the parties should absorb people's aspirations," he said.

The prolonged debate over vote-sharing agreements, particularly among eight Muslim parties, was in part due to the fact that the "both KPU and PPI were not transparent about when the agreements actually took place", he said in Yogyakarta.

The agreements were initially said to be invalid because they were submitted after the June 7 polls took place. But representatives have said there were other agreements among political parties which had been accepted after the June 4 deadline.

In Jakarta, the National Election Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu), after a two-day meeting with 27 provincial chapters which evaluated the polls, recommended that it be given more authority in future.

Panwaslu itself has been criticized for being slow and inadequate in supervising the polls. Members said they were only authorized to draw up recommendations.

The supervisory committee also said the KPU's authority should be limited to only drawing up technical decrees. "They should not take over the authority of lawmaking bodies," Ramelan Surbakti of Panwaslu said.

The KPU was frequently lambasted for suggesting changes in the political laws. Ramelan also noted the KPU had violated its own rules and had issued new decrees without canceling previous ones. Confusion over vote-sharing agreements was also caused by related decrees.

Ramelan also said the national meeting recommended the KPU be trimmed down to five or seven members.

He added that members should be nonpartisan, credible, committed to democracy and have sufficient skills.

"The members should be independent and have no links to the political parties or the government," Ramelan said.

The 53-member KPU comprises five government representatives and 48 representatives of political parties. Legislators ruled out the government's proposed membership of community representatives in the KPU. (05/44)