KPU needs one voice to fend off political sharks

KPU needs one voice to fend off political sharks

Ong Hock Chuan, Jakarta

The General Elections Commission (KPU) seems to have become a
crisis-in-progress. It appears to have lost control of the
situation. Disgruntled political parties called for the election
results to be declared invalid, though later they said these were
only the statements of their individual leaders.

Information technology experts are having a field day blaming
the KPU and everyone else with their I-told-you-so admonishments.
Even State Minister for Information and Communications Syamsul
Mu'arif has weighed in, saying that the KPU's computerized vote
counting system -- though which by law will not be the basis of
the official results -- has given IT a bad name.

If the pressure amounts to KPU having to declare the results
of the legislative election invalid, such a scenario would be
unfortunate to Indonesia's development, both economically and
politically. It would represent a backward step for all the
progress Indonesia has made toward becoming a more stable
democracy.

The KPU should not let this happen and the way they can do
this is by managing their communications better. They should
start off by defining three key messages that they should deliver
at every occasion and media engagement, until the messages sink
into the minds of every politician, observer and member of the
public.

The first is that the KPU may have made many mistakes, but it
also achieved much. In spite of everything, it managed to hold
the elections on time. This is no small achievement given the
geographic spread and size of the voting population.

The second message that the KPU should hammer on is that it
would be naive for anyone not to expect any irregularities in an
election as complex as this one.

With some 147 million voters in large cities as well as remote
villages casting their votes for not one, but four tiers of
political office, some degree of irregularity is to be expected.

No one has yet to make a strong argument that the degree of
irregularity is beyond acceptable levels. International
observers, who have had much experience studying elections in
many countries and under varying conditions, have certainly not
lodged any strong protests against the overall staging of the
general election. Therefore, there is no basis to call for a
revote on the basis of irregularities.

KPU's third key message should be to reiterate that its
computerized voting system was meant only to provide an
indication of voting trends, not the legal results, so there is
no basis for the political parties to call for a revote based on
the reliability of the computerized voting results. The election
law clearly stipulates that only manually counted voting results
will be officially recognized.

If the KPU decides on these key messages then the next step it
should take is to ensure they do not shoot themselves in the foot
by muddling the delivery. The KPU has consistently been doing
this. On any given day three or more spokespersons are quoted by
the media, often delivering messages that contradict each other.

An example was KPU member Chusnul Mar'iyah reaffirming on the
eve of the elections that the results would be delivered nine
hours after the polling closed. At the same time, a KPU IT team
member raised doubts over the caliber of data input officers in
the provinces.

Instances like this only give the impression that the KPU is
confused, divided and is not in charge. It also sends the message
to political parties that the KPU is weak. Weakness in politics
has the same allure as the smell of blood to sharks.

What the KPU can do is appoint one person to be the KPU's
spokesperson and channel all preagreed messages through him or
her. This spokesperson should be trained to be on message even
when dealing with the most aggressive journalists. Everyone else
in the KPU would just have to shut up, no matter how large their
egos.

It is only by such a disciplined approach to communications
that the KPU can regain control of the situation and move
Indonesia's march toward democracy forward. Failure to manage its
communications well would make it easy for political parties to
push for a revote, which would benefit no one in Indonesia.

The writer works at Maverick, a public relations consultancy
specializing in crisis and issues management and brand
communications.