Independent team needed to assess election: Lopa
Independent team needed to assess election: Lopa
YOGYAKARTA (JP): The National Commission on Human Rights
proposed yesterday that an independent team be set up to assess
the May 29 general election.
Commission Secretary-General Baharuddin Lopa said in a seminar
on Elections, Human Rights and Laws that results of the study
could be used to improve electoral laws.
Lopa said the team was needed, especially because of the
widespread poll-rigging alleged by the United Development Party
(PPP) and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI).
"The team would greatly help improve electoral laws. The
alleged rigging has underlined the need to improve the law," he
said.
The PPP and PDI have repeatedly demanded that the 1985
Election Law be revised, saying that it is "undemocratic" and
favors the government-backed Golkar party.
The two parties demanded that all three parties be allowed to
help run the general election. Under current law, the election is
organized by the government.
In an apparent bid to attract more voters, the PPP had
proposed a bill to revise this law before the May 29 election.
Yesterday's seminar at Tjokroaminoto University also featured
Dahlan Thaib from the Indonesian Islamic University and Zulkifli
Halim of Tjokroaminoto University.
Lopa said the proposed team should include party
representatives, academics and intellectuals.
"If the study is conducted by the government, who will believe
its results?" he said.
Lopa said political parties should be free to choose their own
legislative candidates and free to air their ideas so that
democracy could grow.
On the last election, Lopa said that all three parties should
fulfill their election promises to eradicate corruption and
collusion in the bureaucracy if they did not want to lose the
people's trust.
"People cannot wait for them to fulfill the promises," he
said. "Campaigners made big promises and it would be a big sin
not to fulfill them."
Lopa said he was wondering whether the campaigners realized
that eradicating corruption was not easy, as many people
imagined.
"I have spent 30 years working hard on it. It's truly a tough
job," said Lopa, a former director general for correctional
institutions.
Other big promises that people want to see fulfilled are free
education, creation of employment and empowerment of small
business.
"It would be great if the political parties could fulfill
their promises and miserable if they could not," he said.
(23/pan)