On foreign observers
A week after Minister of Home Affairs Moch. Yogie S.M.'s surprise announcement that foreign observers will be allowed to monitor all stages of the May 29 election, nothing but positive reactions have been aired, both at home and abroad. Although the minister has yet to disclose who he will invite and what their itinerary will be, and although the foreign observers will be barred from investigating cases or passing judgment on them, one can conclude that, indeed, this is still a timely decision which deserves praise. However, will it help restore the public's confidence in the fairness of the coming general election?
One has to admit that there is widespread concern among the public that the coming election will be marred by vote-rigging and manipulation. The all-out actions by several government officials who prematurely and unadornedly have engaged in an open campaign for the ruling Golkar do not help allay those suspicions. The government's indifference toward the Independent Election Monitoring Committee (KIPP) when it was established last year has also been interpreted by many as contempt for any possible intruder.
Several other things have also helped nurture the public's belief that the government, somehow, will again adopt a partisan stance in the election. The toppling of Megawati Soekarnoputri from the chairmanship of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) last year, allegedly to deter any attempt to nominate her as a presidential candidate, and the strict election campaign rules issued last month which practically bar the two smaller parties, PPP and PDI, from conducting a proper campaign, are seen as part of the strategy to assure another landslide victory for Golkar.
Now, allowing foreign observers to watch the May election will surely help to disperse those ill rumors and suspicions. But much more is needed before the mistrust can be eliminated. Allowing KIPP, or any other domestic poll watchdogs, to monitor the election would be another good step. After all, if foreign observers are welcome, why not let local observers watch the polling as well? Another commendable step would be to allow witnesses and observers to watch the ballot boxes when they are recounted and dispatched to the sub-district and district election committees, a stage which is said to be the most prone to manipulation.
But will this allay fears that the election will not be honest, clean and fair? Given the unprecedented repeated warnings from President Soeharto in the last several weeks during which he threatened to punish any election boycotters, one can surmise that the thing that most worries the government is a campaign to boycott the election. It is obvious that the government is aware that a growing number of people are becoming disillusioned to the extent that they may boycott the election.
Viewed in this context, one can deduce that the decision to allow foreign observers to watch the polls is part of an attempt to lure back voters to the election booths by guaranteeing an honest and clean election. How successful this endeavor will be will depend largely on how far the government is willing to go to guarantee a fair election.
As an afterthought, barring any unforeseeable developments, it would be safe, at present, to predict that certain parties' campaign to boycott the election will not be successful. With President Soeharto's repeated warnings, and such influential leaders like Abdurrahman Wahid and Amien Rais calling not to boycott the election, plus Megawati's call to her grassroots supporters to participate in all the election processes -- all of which will be eventually "reinforced" by the authorities' "clobbering" measures -- it is unlikely that the May election's turnout will be less than previous election turnouts. But no one can guarantee that the number of protest votes, made by casting invalid ballots, will not rise.