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