NGOs set up independent poll monitoring committee

NGOs set up independent poll monitoring committee

BANDUNG (JP): Ten local non-governmental organizations and legal aid institutes established an independent poll monitoring committee here over the weekend.

"We don't care whether the government approves of us. The monitoring committee will still exist, and we'll still be monitoring the 1997 general elections," said one activist.

The committee is made up of student activists, youths and public figures. It vowed to independently monitor all stages of the general elections, from the registration procedure to the final ballot counting.

Director of the Nusantara Legal Aid Institute Effendi Saman said that the activists established the committee on Saturday because past elections were all marred by cheating, particularly during the ballot counting process.

This unfair practice not only sabotaged one of the three political contestants, but also caused a loss to the public, he said.

He said that it is the responsibility of each of the political contestants to supervise the general elections. However, experience has shown that there no legal sanctions were imposed on any party guilty of manipulating the election process, Saman charged.

Should similar violations occur in the 1997 general elections, "we will take legal and political action", Saman said.

A number of representatives from local student movements, NGOs, and legal aid institutes attended the establishment of the poll monitoring committee.

They came from the Indonesian National Student Movement (GMNI), the Institute for Rural Development and Education (LP3), the Bandung NGO Forum, the People's Democratic Alliance (Aldera), as well as the Nusantara Legal Aid Institute, amongst others.

Saman said the activists would establish similar committees across the country.

"We have gained and will gain more support from NGOs nationwide to establish monitoring committees in other cities," he said.

The cities to follow Bandung establishing the committee included Jakarta, Lampung, Medan in North Sumatra, Mataram in Lombok, Denpasar in Bali, Ujung Pandang in South Sulawesi, as well as a number of cities in Central and East Java and West Kalimantan.

With such great support pouring in, he said, the committee would find it easier to record violations and establish "a map of regions prone to cheating during the general elections", he said.

The newly-established committee has already started compiling data on those cities with the most violations during elections, he said.

Saman said the committee would monitor elections both in the big cities and the villages and remote areas.

"Manipulation in general elections usually take place in villages and remote areas," he said. (pet/imn)