Media, parties agree to promote peaceful poll

Andi Hajramurni, The Jakarta Post, Makassar, South Sulawesi

Representatives of the media and political parties in South Sulawesi province agreed on Saturday that they would help spurn violence in the upcoming elections.

The agreement was voiced by the members of the Alliance of Independence Journalists (AJI), the Media Coalition for Free Elections, the Partnership for Governance Reform and several political parties, including the Merdeka Party.

Muannas, the chairman of AJI Makassar's branch, said that the agreement was made after previous experiences in which journalists were assaulted by political parties' task force members.

Aside from physical assaults, the journalists have also been the victims of psychological pressure from political parties.

"Members of political parties occupy the editorial office of the press, or they prevent journalists from gathering news," said Muannas in the discussion titled "Violence against Journalists Covering Elections", held in Makassar.

But, on the other hand, political parties have also often been victims of the media.

Ridwan, a politician from Merdeka Party, said that the media often wrote stories that ignored the principle of covering both sides.

"The impact of unbalanced stories is huge. The stories can literally destroy political parties," he said.

But, Ridwan said that the political parties supported media that criticized political parties, so long as the stories were accurate, unbiased and applied the principle of covering both sides of the story.

However, Ridwan accused the media of being discriminative, especially for small political parties.

Small political parties got little coverage in the media, although the Election Law rules that they deserve equal space with the big political parties, he said.

Meanwhile, religious and community leaders also signed an agreement that they would help ensure that the elections were conducted peacefully in the province.

They signed a joint statement, namely that religious leaders would not meddle in politics in the name of religion, they would call for people to impose self-restraint in the elections and they could call on people to vote in the elections.

They were from the Indonesian Council of Ulemas (MUI), the Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI), the Cardinal of South Sulawesi Cardinal and other religious leaders and organizations.