KPU to probe irregularities in voter registration

Arya Abhiseka, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The General Elections Commission (KPU) is planning to send teams out to select regions to investigate reports of irregularities in the voter registration process.

KPU member Mulyana W. Kusumah said on Wednesday that several members of the commission would visit next week several regions, such as East Java and Sumatra, to monitor voter registration.

"We will monitor several areas that have complained of a shortage of forms and several other irregularities hampering voter registration," he said.

Voter registration, which is costing KPU about Rp 417 billion (US$46.8 million), is facing criticism over its poor publicizing of the election. Members of the public have also complained about the field officers' lack of professionalism in carrying out their duties. The Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS), which was asked by KPU to carry out the registration, has been dropping hints that it may not make the April 30 deadline.

Mulyana said BPS often complained about a shortage of registration forms, duplicate entries made by untrained officers, numerous errors, incomplete forms and a lack of field officers.

"In some areas in West Jakarta, for example, there are not enough field officers, while several trained officers have failed to correctly fill out or even complete the registration forms."

There have also been some reports of field officers asking eligible voters to give them copies of their personal identification and family cards, even though this is not a requirement.

This has raised fears that some registration officials are being used by political parties to collect copies of identification and family cards to allow the party to run in the 2004 election.

Under the current political party law, parties need to have branches in at least half of the country's provinces, and offices in at least two-thirds of the regencies and districts of those provinces. In addition, at least 1,000 signatures of their local members along with the copies of their identification cards have to be collected to have those local branches recognized.

Mulyana said KPU would impose certain sanctions on field officers committing these practices. He did not elaborate on the penalties.

He said that these irregularities may cause delays in several provinces.

KPU had previously announced that 22 areas were experiencing a shortage of 1.2 million voter registration forms. It said that BPS had miscalculated the projected number of eligible voters. The miscalculation has prompted KPU to increase its voter registration budget by about Rp 950 million (US$106,000).

Some 130 million eligible voters are expected to register for the 2004 election.

BPS had earlier complained about the poor publicizing of the general election, in which the public was often unaware of the time when a field officer would visit a household to conduct the voter registration.

KPU commissioned BPS to conduct a nationwide census and voter registration starting earlier this month. The deadline is April 30.

BPS has deployed about 230,000 officers to conduct the voter registration with the results to be announced in December of this year. The results will be used as an integrated single database for future elections.

Indonesia's first direct elections will begin nationwide on April 5, 2004, with the legislative election and it will be followed by a two-phased presidential election between June and August 2004.