Poll body told to educate voters about election

Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Calls are mounting on the General Elections Commission (KPU) to educate voters on the Election Law so as to avoid political parties from keeping the old proportional electoral system intact.

Director of the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro) Smita Notosusanto said here on Sunday the general election system now adopted the proportional system with an open-list of candidates, which suggested that numerical order of legislative candidates no longer counted as it did in the past.

"The absence of information on the new system could be misused by political parties. With the elections less than 100 days away, the KPU should disseminate information on how the new mechanism works within these weeks," Smita said.

The general election is scheduled for April 5.

The Law No. 12/2003 on general elections requires voters to mark both the symbol of a political party and the name of their preferred legislative candidate. But the law stipulates a ballot is valid if there is a mark on only the symbol of a party.

The one man, one vote system is applied in the upcoming elections.

Smita said the executive boards of parties will use the loophole to help only their loyalists win legislative seats.

She therefore asked the KPU to clearly explain to the public the rule of the game, otherwise there would be many invalid ballots due to the lack of information for voters.

Dissemination of information by the KPU on the poll procedures is crucial, given the fact that the new electoral system still benefits legislative candidates placed on top of the list.

Article 107 of the Election Law says that candidates will win legislative seats if they win a certain number of votes. If they fail, the law says, priority will be given to those placed on top of the list of candidates.

M. Qodari of the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) concurred with Smita, suggesting that the KPU quickly start providing detailed information on how to cast ballots.

Both Smita and Qodari said that the KPU's move to install banners in public places and place advertisements on television was not enough because they did not tell the public how different the 2004 elections would be compared to past polls.

Qodari said that providing the public with information on the procedures of polling was more urgent than calling on the public to participate in the polls.

"We estimate that public participation in the elections will be around 90 percent. Therefore, the KPU must start providing detailed information to the people," he said.

Baharuddin Aritonang, a politician from Golkar, said the current system was unfair because to some extent it maintained the old practice that determined the elected candidates based on their numerical order.

Giving an example, Aritonang said that candidates who won 100,000 votes could be defeated by another with only 10,000 or 5,000 votes when the minimum number of votes gained (BPP) were 125,000 only because the latter were placed on the top of the list.

Smita agreed with Aritonang, saying that the new system disadvantaged new political parties and minority groups.

"We predict that there will be more legislators elected because of numerical priority rather than the BPP," she said, adding that a popular figure may not be elected because he or she failed to meet the minimum number of votes.

She said the system could reduce public trust in the political system.