Media, parties agree to promote peaceful poll

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.