Strong electoral commission crucial to democracy

By Julia Suryakusuma

The current economic and political crisis should not distract Indonesia from the urgent task of establishing strong foundations to democracy, including a strong electoral commission. Julia Suryakusuma, the executive director of the API Foundation for Political Research, Information and Publications, argues for a commission powerful enough to exercise authority over all political players.

JAKARTA (JP): Besieged as we are by a multitude of political issues, ranging from the conflict between the presidency and the people's representative bodies to corruption and nepotism, we must never forget that the need for reform remains.

Indeed, the reform of the political system is the basis for recovery from Indonesia's multidimensional crisis. Among desirable political reform, reforming the election commission should have high priority.

The Indonesian Election Commission (KPU, Komisi Pemilihan Umum) conducts elections which constitute the gateway to a democratic system. It needs to enjoy strong authority in the eyes of both political players and the public. If it is suspect or if the elections it conducts are suspect, the resulting outcome in terms of the people elected will also be considered suspect.

Members of the election commission should therefore be independent and nonpartisan and have integrity, good knowledge of governance as well as a good grasp of the issues. In addition, the organizational structure itself should have clear hierarchy, with responsibilities and authority clearly delineated.

The origins of a strong election commission are the election laws which will guide the work of the commission. If these laws are weak, ambiguous or unrealistic, how can we seriously expect the performance of the election commission to be much better?

In discussing the KPU, we need to place it in the general context of Indonesian politics.

The problems of the present KPU are in fact typical of other democratic institutions in Indonesia. One of these is ambiguity, e.g. the parliamentary system which is neither unicameral or bicameral, or the governmental system which floats between a presidential and parliamentary system.

Clearly this ambiguity needs to be clarified if we are to develop a democratic system which is truly representative and effective.

Although the June 1999 elections were judged a success, the commission itself was beset by many problems: infighting, accusations of bias and inconsistencies.

This was not surprising, given the structure of the organization at the time (see Diagram I). This began with the inclusion of leading political (party) figures in the KPU, without any limitation or clarification on what kinds of partisan persons could be included.

Consequently, almost all party members of the KPU were party presidents, general secretaries or other members of the party central boards including, God forbid, party campaign finance directors. Such a situation all but guaranteed profound conflicts of interest.

Under such circumstances, why should anybody be surprised when these KPU members decided that they could run in the elections, even though they were members of the election commission overseeing the election?

Simply put, when were these members speaking on behalf of the KPU, when were they speaking on behalf of their parties and when were they speaking on behalf of themselves (as legislative candidates)?

This kind of ambiguity quickly sapped the legitimacy and authority of the KPU, rendering it almost totally impotent to take action against any electoral irregularities.

Many of the problems that confronted the KPU were caused by loose and ambiguous wording of the election law as well as the impractical nature of many of its provisions.

The fact that so many key features of the election law were left to the KPU to determine only added to the extraordinary pressures it confronted in actually running the elections last year.

Some examples of the "irregularities" that occurred in electoral management include: the number of seats for the Jakarta municipality for some reason did not follow the pattern elsewhere of city/regency candidates lists. Rather, the parties in Jakarta had one single list.

Such a political problem, however, should have been sorted out by a political body, namely the House of Representatives (DPR). The decision to prohibit ministerial party cadres from campaigning but yet allow members of the KPU to campaign, indeed to become legislative candidates, degraded significantly the public authority of the KPU.

After the vote count was taken, party representatives, especially those from the small parties, took issue with the electoral threshold (the minimum number of seats that a party needs to get to participate in the next elections, that is 2 percent of the number of DPR members) and muddled up management of the Stembus Accord (a coalition agreement between parties to combine votes in order to get more seats).

The commission's reputation hit its nadir when 27 party representatives refused to approve the final results. Yet despite essentially admitting failure in completing their task, not one of these people resigned as an act of taking responsibility.

Institutionally the KPU is responsible to the president but by personal membership some are responsible to their party, while others have to answer to the president as the representative of the government.

The General Secretariat on a technical operational level is responsible to the KPU and on a technical administrative level to the Minister of Home Affairs. This "logic" of divided/ambiguous lines of accountability and responsibility follows through to the lower levels.

The confusion resulting from these overlapping chains of commands clearly impinge on the independence of the KPU as a whole.

How can elections be expected to be conducted with competence and integrity when the KPU is so riddled with conflicting interests and lines of responsibility of its members and staff?

For instance, in 1999 there were assorted political conflicts, both internally in the body of the election commission (KPU) as well as externally with other election bodies, including between local governments, local election committees and local parties.

The conflicts ranged from a violation of the election laws, overlapping authorities of the KPU and National Elections Committee (PPI), tyranny over the minority as a result of conflicting loyalties between party reps (whose parties won no seats or few seats), as well as the confusion resulting from the KPU having a structurally disloyal staff through a general secretariat also accountable to the government.

There were also poor chains of authority between the central KPU and local election committees, whose chains of accountability were stronger to the local government or party leadership.

Indonesia's great saving grace throughout this period was the determination of all the people, including the voters, officials and members of the commission, that the elections had to be held, and held on time.