KPU kicks off education program for poll workers
M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Hoping to avoid the mistakes of the first round of the presidential election, the General Elections Commission (KPU) launched on Friday an education program for poll officials at various levels nationwide.
In the launching on Friday here, the KPU officially sent various information materials, including manuals and video compact discs (VCDs), to various tiers of poll organizers from provincial down to subdistrict level nationwide to shed light on the balloting procedures ahead in the Sept. 20 presidential election runoff.
Hamid Awaludin, a member of the national poll organizer KPU, said in a press briefing following the launching, that there were 775,000 manuals sent, and some 10,000 VCDs.
The education program was paid for by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
The manuals and the VCDs, the primary source in the education program for poll organizers nationwide, contain a variety of information, ranging from balloting procedures at the polling stations to the vote-counting held at the district, regency and provincial General Elections Commission (KPUD) offices.
The education program will target over 5 million poll organizers and officials in the country.
To reach a wider audience, beginning on Friday, five television stations, state-run television station TVRI, privately-owned television stations TV-7, RCTI, SCTV and Trans TV will broadcast the abridged version of the VCDs. It features local movie star Dedi Mizwar and comedians Mat Solar and Cici Tegal.
The education program is aimed at preventing the same technical glitches that occurred in the first round of the presidential election from taking place again in the second round of presidential election on September 20.
One of the most serious of the glitches was the puncture debacle that put the credibility of the vote-counting result at risk. It was caused by unawareness of voters on how to punch their ballot papers, which had unclear instructions from the KPU. Unaware that they had on entirely unfolded the ballot papers completely, voters punched the picture of their preferred candidate but produced two holes on the ballot paper. They were initially counted as invalid then an emergency decision to allow them to counted came from the KPU, but still problems and debates continued.
It created confusion among the candidates, including Gen. (ret) Wiranto, who abruptly contested the election took his complaints to court. However, the court rejected the appeal, saying it had no authority to hear the case.
Wiranto finished third after Megawati and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in the first round of presidential election, which meant that he did not qualify for the runoff.