Strong electoral commission crucial to democracy

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.