Public unaware of election preparations

Public unaware of election preparations

Arya Abhiseka
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta

Winarto, a public minivan driver plying the Kebayoran Lama-Tanah
Abang route, was obviously baffled when asked if he was ready to
register for the 2004 general elections.

"Elections? This Tuesday? No, I didn't know that registration
was so soon," Winarto, 32, told The Jakarta Post early this week.

Udin, 22, a janitor at a film company in Central Jakarta, said
that he had no idea yet of the time line or the mechanism of next
year's general election.

"I am not familiar with the entire process of the next year's
general election," he said.

The National Elections Commission (KPU) had decided to start
voter registration for next year's elections on April 1, 2003.
The commission said earlier that there were around 130 million
eligible voters around the country.

Sadly, however, not too many people are aware of the time line
set by KPU, and according to Hadar Gumay from the Center for
Electoral Reform (CETRO), members of the House of Representatives
(DPR) are to blame for that.

"I do not blame it entirely on KPU as the whole process has
some flaws. The House was very slow in deliberating the election
bill," Hadar told the Post on Tuesday.

The House endorsed the election bill only at the end of
February, far behind the original schedule of November 2002. The
delay had prevented the commission from making early election
preparations.

According to KPU member Imam B. Prasodjo, the delay had made
it impossible for the commission to set an election date and
prepare the public service announcement to raise people's
awareness of the upcoming general elections.

"We could not decide on the public service announcement as the
general elections law was endorsed late," Imam said.

KPU has set April 5, 2004 as the date for the legislative
election, with the presidential elections scheduled to take place
between June and August.

During a seminar on Local Radio Network for Democracy,
organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) here on Tuesday, experts warned
KPU that it had done a poor job in communicating the mechanism
for the general election.

"Local radios must be more proactive in taking charge in
providing information on the general election to the public. We
cannot rely on KPU alone," said media expert Riza Primadi.

Hadar warned that poor preparations might steer people away
from participating in the elections as the public had become more
critical and aware of the country's political condition.

"Politicians and political parties have proven that they have
not responded to people's aspirations, making the people more
skeptical and indifferent toward the general election," he said.

CETRO, according to Hadar, had predicted that election
abstentionism would account for between 18 percent and 19 percent
of the total 130 million voters in the next elections, a sharp
increase from 1999's elections of 9.5 percent.

Meanwhile, President Megawati Soekarnoputri urged KPU on
Friday to stand firm by its decisions, saying that the success of
elections depended on KPU's resoluteness.

"KPU should be firm and consistent about whatever decisions it
has taken," KPU deputy chairman Ramlan Surbakti quoted Megawati
as saying during their meeting on Friday.