Scholars criticize new election speech guidelines

JAKARTA (JP): The government's new guidelines on election campaign speeches were criticized yesterday by scholars who agreed that the need to maintain political stability prompted the controversial rules.

Riswandha Imawan of the Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University's School of Social and Political Sciences said the decrees were part of the government's efforts to weaken political organizations, particularly Golkar's opponents.

A senior researcher from the National Institute of Science, Indria Samego, was less critical. He speculated that the government had merely lacked sufficient time to heed public expectations following a series of riots before the May 29 election.

The two political scientists were commenting on decrees announced by the home affairs and information ministers Tuesday which detailed the operational rules of the electoral regulations issued last November.

Criticism focused on clauses allowing the government to intervene in contestants' campaigns, which many believe is a thinly veiled form of censorship.

The rules say that all texts of campaign speeches will be vetted by a government-sanctioned screening team before they are made public during the April 27 to May 23 campaign period.

Riswandha said that by issuing the latest two electoral regulations, the government had acted unnecessarily and might jeopardize a successful election.

He said that in the wake of human rights criticism such restrictive electoral rules would raise eyebrows about Indonesia's political stability.

"The international community may reach the conclusion that Indonesia is unable to cope with a crisis after decades of efforts to maintain order. This contradicts government officials' repeated statements that the country is safe and under control," Riswandha said.

He added that the government should not have preserved its long-standing suspicions of certain political groupings because they all recognize the state ideology Pancasila.

"They (political organizations) will undoubtedly only raise issues which are in line with Pancasila," Riswandha said.

The screening job will also give the election committee a headache, because it will have to examine more than 900 texts from the three election contestants, according to Riswandha.

Understandable

Indria said that the government's restrictive electoral rules are understandable in anticipation of a reoccurrence of the violence which rocked the country recently.

"The government doesn't risk allowing legislative candidates to incite a mass mobilization while delivering their speeches," he said.

Ethnic and sectarian riots have shaken the archipelago sporadically since October, killing 14 people. The latest outbreak in West Kalimantan prompted the Malaysian government to close a number of crossing points along the Sarawak-Kalimantan border.

Indria labeled the government's right to screen the speeches a setback. "The government should not worry about campaign speakers as they will find it hard to persuade the public to do what they ask because people have grown smarter," Indria said.

He called on the government to apply the rules without exception to all three political groupings contesting the election. Golkar, the United Development Party and the Indonesian Democratic Party are the only organizations that qualify for the election.

"As long as the rules work and the government plays its refereeing role consistently, I believe each political grouping should manage to make use of the campaign period effectively despite the restrictions," he said.

Indria suggested that changes toward a more democratic election would take a long time to implement. (amd)