New regulations on poll campaigns deplored as vague

JAKARTA (JP): The new regulations on election campaigns are vague and may be detrimental to the two minority parties, according to two political observers from the University of Indonesia.

M. Budhyatna, the dean of the School of Social and Political Sciences, said some of the wordings in the regulations may attract different interpretations.

Maswadi Rauf, a staff lecturer at the university, said in the event of a conflict over interpretation, the government's interpretation usually prevails.

The new campaign regulations are contained in Presidential Decree No. 99/1996 and Government Regulation No. 74/1996, both issued last month.

The government said the new regulations are intended to ensure peace and order during the campaign preceding the May general election. The regulations, which ban street rallies and only allow electioneering in the form of public assemblies, media coverage and printed publications, have raised skepticism among observers.

The two political observers questioned the term "rally".

"The definition of 'rally' used in the regulation is still vague," Budhyatna said. "Does it mean people cannot walk together or use their vehicles together when they want to go to the mass assemblies?"

"If that is what the government wants, I think it's very strange, because the two (street rallies and mass gatherings) are inextricable. A street rally could happen simultaneously if there was a mass gathering," he said.

"This is not a breakthrough. This will only create new problems," he said.

President Soeharto has set May 29 as the polling day to elect 425 of the 500 members of the House of Representatives. The other 75 seats are reserved for Armed Forces representatives.

The election will be contested between Golkar, the United Development Party (PPP) and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI).

Campaigning will be restricted for the period between April 29 and May 23. A five-day cooling period -- meaning no campaigning at all -- precedes election day.

In past election campaigns, clashes between supporters of different parties were avoided by allowing the parties to campaign on different days in any given town.

Some rallies, however, still turned rowdy and disorderly because they involved long motorcades as supporters were being transported to the campaign assembly site and driven home afterwards.

Maswadi said he was not sure whether the new rules would actually prevent motorcades from developing, because there might be problems of interpretation.

"In my book, two cars is all right. But if a convoy involves more than 10 cars, law enforcement officers might consider it an offense. This is a loophole," he said.

"It will be very hard to enforce because the government then has to decide the specific number of cars that can be used to take supporters to a political assembly," he said.

"It (the issue) definitely is open to argument," he added.

Budhyatna said the ban on street rallies will be detrimental to the PPP and the PDI, and is only beneficial to Golkar.

"The two minority parties rely heavily on the spontaneity of their supporters," he said. "Golkar, on the other hand, uses a more top-down approach."

"The decisionmakers in the government, who are mostly Golkar members, want to eliminate this kind of spontaneity. Golkar does not rely on street rallies too much and therefore, it will not affect their votes. It has a solid mass and huge funding," Budhyatna said.

He suspected that the real reason behind the ruling was to help Golkar again achieve another landslide victory.

"It seems that Golkar is using all of their tricks to sweep the coming election. This is one of them," he said.

Budhyatna and Maswadi promised, however, that as members of the public, they would monitor and make sure that the regulations are enforced fairly and properly.

"It's our duty to look out for any signs of unfairness," Maswadi said.

"It also means that government officials should do their jobs properly. They should not busy themselves with only figuring on how to make Golkar sweep the votes," Budhyatna said.

Golkar has won all five general elections held under President Soeharto since 1971. In 1992, it won 68 percent of the total votes, against PPP's 17 percent and PDI's 15 percent.

Golkar is targeting to win at least 70 percent of the votes this year, a figure many political observers said should be easy for it to attain, given its strength. (36)