More watchers needed: Cetro

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta

Poll watchdogs have urged presidential candidates to allocate a big chunk of their budgets to deploy witnesses to polling stations, and during ballot counting, to prevent vote-rigging in the July 5 election.

Smita Notosusanto, the director of the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro), said vote-rigging was either overlooked or unproven in the April 5 legislative election due to a lack of witnesses.

"Those improprieties took place apparently because most political parties did not assign their members to witness the whole process of ballot counting," she told The Jakarta Post here on Sunday.

She suggested that presidential candidates reduce their campaign budgets to train and deploy witnesses.

Ray Rangkuti of the Independent Committee for Election Monitoring (KIPP) said witnesses would play a more pivotal role in the presidential election.

KIPP data revealed 446 cases of irregularities in the general election, many of which involved election committee members, while others were because of the absence of witnesses.

Separately, a member of the Election Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu) Didik Supriyanto urged political parties and presidential candidates to select only competent witnesses.

"The witnesses must have integrity otherwise they will take bribes," he told the Post.

Didik added that the official supervision committee had demanded that for the presidential election the General Elections Commission (KPU) post a copy of the vote tally for each polling station in a public place for the sake of transparency.

Smita said ballot counting in remote villages and subdistricts might last for days, therefore presidential candidates and parties must allocate extra money for witnesses' meals.

"Problems mostly occur during the vote-counting in villages or subdistricts. So, there must be more witnesses deployed," she said.