Observer predicts widespread poll rigging
JAKARTA (JP): Systematic poll rigging by bureaucrats and the military to help Golkar, the government-backed contestant, will remain widespread in the coming election, an observer predicted yesterday.
Alexander Irwan also dismissed fears that there will be violent disruptions of the May 29 election by people wanting to vent their frustration at social injustices.
Irwan, a cowriter of Election, Violations of Fair Principles, about vote rigging in the 1992 election, believes the violations would be about as numerous as five years ago.
The worst violations mostly take place in polling stations where witnesses from Golkar's rivals, the United Development Party (PPP) and Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), are often blocked from observing the ballot counting, he said.
"Witnesses are crucial in the ballot counting and in the past they often became a prime target of intimidation," Irwan told The Jakarta Post.
PPP and PDI also breached the regulations but their violations, such as removing Golkar's banners, were described as unsystematic and insignificant.
Golkar, PDI and PPP will compete for 425 seats in the 500- member House of Representatives. The remaining 75 seats are reserved for the Armed Forces, whose members do not vote.
Currently, Golkar dominates the House with 282 seats. PPP is second with 62 seats and PDI has 56. In past elections the Armed Forces was granted 100 seats.
Golkar, which enjoys strong backing from the bureaucracy, the military and business conglomerates, is looking to increase its share of the vote from 68 percent to 70 percent.
According to Irwan, security and government institutions from ministry down to neighborhood level all but dominated the 1992 general election.
Government officials at all administrative levels, who are supposedly neutral, hold key positions in the electoral institutions.
For instance village chiefs are also Golkar activists, members of the local election committee and the election supervision committee.
"These overlapping positions allow officials to arrange the election results," he said.
In the past, PPP and PDI witnesses were coerced into signing declarations on election results before the ballot counting had even started, he said.
"Witnesses who refused to sign the documents were subject to physical abuses. In 1992, the most incidents were reported in Aceh," he added.
In the run-up to this May's election, Irwan has noted several violations. In the central Java town of Demak, for example, officials have intimidated students to vote for Golkar.
The presence of unrecognized Independent Election Monitoring Committee and possibly also foreign observers, will not contribute anything to improving this year's election quality because violations occurred not only during ballot counting.
"Who can monitor the transport of ballot boxes, for instance," he said, warning that the independent watchdog activists may well be subject to physical harassment.
Irwan brushed aside fears that mob violence, as has happened in several places since October, might reoccur prior to the election because the government did not want it to happen and disrupt the event.
He said the Indonesian middle class was not strong enough to force political change as some hope. Indonesian middle class people need the government's political protection, he said.
"Besides, large businesses find the government policies' benefit them so they have nothing to complain about. Complaints about illegal levies and bureaucratic hurdles come from small and medium-sized businesses." (pan)