Poll watchdog aspirations

Poll watchdog aspirations

The Chief Commander of the Armed Forces, Gen. Feisal Tanjung, reminded provincial governors during a conference in Jakarta that the social dynamics presently at work in our society will be among the challenges to be faced in next year's general election. The surge of creativity that is a result of those dynamics has not been wholly accommodated. As a result sociopolitical conditions tend to fluctuate and the political temperature rises.

The way in which the authorities have greeted the birth of the Independent Election Monitoring Committee indicates that the government is responding properly to the changes that are taking place in our society. Although the committee is regarded as being outside the system, the government has not rejected it. It is sort of being tolerated on condition that it does not disturb the existing system and that it does not position itself as a rival to the official Elections Supervision Committee.

Aside from being part of the dynamics of political development in this country, new aspirations are also in accord with conditions prevailing in the world. It has become something of a regular pattern that anywhere general elections are held in countries that are in the process of establishing democracy, the wish for having this kind of control emerges. In some cases those aspirations even work together with global networks or with the United Nations. Being part of that global system, it should not be surprising that our country, too, is affected by this trend.

We should all have the wisdom to position ourselves and to respond correctly to those new conditions. The aim of the monitoring committee is to improve the quality of the upcoming general election in order to ensure not only the formal legitimacy of the voting results, but also their political morality.

-- Kompas, Jakarta