KPU blocks local Panwaslu access to information: Official

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Forty percent of 416 regency offices of the Elections Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu) have had difficulty obtaining the necessary information from the General Elections Commission (KPU), affecting their efforts to detect any violations of the election process.

Panwaslu member Topo Santoso said on Monday that election supervisors in the provinces of Central Java, Bangka and Belitung, as well as those in a number of provinces in Sumatra had reported the lack of access to the information.

"If we have no access ... our supervision will be weak and depend solely on public reports," he told a press conference.

The complaints were raised during the recent plenary meeting between Panwaslu officials across the country, Topo said.

He urged the KPU to immediately increase access, particularly because the factual verification of political parties started last week.

The chairman of Central Java's Panwaslu office, Nur Hidayat Sardini, said the difficulties were experienced by most of the election supervisory committees in regencies and mayoralties under his auspices.

"There is visible fear among local KPU that election supervisors will taint the legitimacy of the results of its verification job," he said.

Just to mention one example, he said the chairman of Panwaslu's Banyumas office was denied a meeting with local KPU members to discuss the planned field verification of electoral candidates on Oct. 20.

Nur Hidayat also said that KPU officials in Klaten refused to follow up the local Panwaslu's findings on alleged violations committed by regional representative candidates during screening.

KPU deputy chairman Ramlan Surbakti said the commission had no intention to block Panwaslu's access to information.

"It depends on the types of information required by local Panwaslu. If it is related to possible crimes committed by electoral candidates, then we will definitely provide the information about the candidates.

"But when it comes to all documents related to electoral candidates, we do not have enough funds to copy the documents," Ramlan said.

He promised to look into the complaints filed by Panwaslu to seek the best solutions to the problems.

The KPU has been verifying regional representative candidates and political parties registered for the general election, which will end on Nov. 30 and Nov. 20 respectively.

On Dec. 2 the KPU will announce which parties qualify for the general election, followed by the announcement of definite regional representative candidates on Dec. 9.

Indonesia will elect legislative members on April 5, 2004 and the president on July 5, with the possible run-off on Sept. 20.

Topo insisted Panwaslu would go ahead with its plan to file reports with police over any alleged crimes committed by electoral candidates.

"We will leave the cases to the law enforcers to follow up. Let the people judge the work of the law enforcers," he said.

Nur Hidayat said Panwaslu in Central Java had so far filed three reports against regional representative candidates with local police over alleged money politics and duplication of identity cards without the consent of the owners, specifically in Semarang, Rembang and Klaten.

Later in the day, KPU chairman Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin revealed that the House of Representatives budget committee had recommended that the government cut KPU budget by Rp 900 billion to Rp 3 trillion.

Nazaruddin said if the government heeded the House's advice, the KPU would cancel its plan to raise honorarium of the elections officials at village level and would reduce the fund spent on dissemination of election-related information to the public.