On foreign observers

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.