Voters unable to punch ballots: Survey
Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
If the legislative election was held today, most ballot papers would probably be disqualified due to errors made by voters in punching the ballot papers, a survey indicated.
A survey conducted by the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro) revealed that more than half of the country's 145 million voters in the 2004 elections still do not know how to punch ballot papers properly.
Most voters, according to the results of the survey announced on Thursday, do not know that they have to punch both the logo of the political party and the name of the candidate.
Hadar N. Gumay, deputy director of Cetro, said 43 percent of voters only punched the ballot paper on the logo as they had done in the past, while 34 percent did not know where to punch.
"The poor knowledge about the procedure for punching the ballot paper in this year's legislative election reaches almost all levels of voters," Hadar told a media conference here on Thursday.
Indonesia will hold a legislative election on April 5, 2004.
Those who do not know how to punch the ballot papers are mostly people from remote villages, elderly voters, farmers, taxi drivers, and public transportation drivers, the survey showed.
The survey conducted between Dec. 4 and Dec. 22, 2003 involved 2,995 respondents in 10 provinces -- Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, East Java, North Sumatra, South Sumatra, Bali, West Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, and South Sulawesi. Almost 65 percent of respondents lived in villages and the remainder lived in cities.
The survey also shows that there was no significant difference between voters on Java island and outside Java as most of them still have no idea how to punch the ballot paper properly.
In West Java, only 14 percent of voters punched the ballot paper correctly and in East Java, 15 percent. The two provinces combined have more than 52 million voters, more than one-third of total voters in the 2004 elections.
In North Sumatra, only 17 percent punched the ballot paper properly, in South Kalimantan 20 percent, West Kalimantan 24 percent, South Sulawesi 39 percent, Bali 35 percent, and South Sumatra 30 percent.
The survey also revealed that 63 percent of voters have never heard of the Regional Representatives Council (DPD), and 84 percent voters have no knowledge about the 30 percent quota for women in the House of Representatives.
Hadar said the poor voter knowledge was due to the failure of both the General Elections Commission (KPU) and the government in disseminating information.
Syamsuddin Harris from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) concurred.
"This survey indicates that the nationwide dissemination of electoral information launched by President Megawati Soekarnoputri two months ago is just rhetoric," he told reporters.
"People know about the 2004 elections, but they do not know when the elections will be held or the new procedure for punching ballot papers", Syamsuddin said.
He went on to say that if the information campaign failed, the quality of the 2004 elections would be no better than the 1999 elections and many votes would be declared invalid.
Hadar called on the KPU and the government to seriously conduct an election information campaign through the mass media and direct meetings.
Separately, KPU media adviser Djohermansyah Djohan said that the KPU would launch an election information dissemination program next week until April 5 through 300 radio stations, seven television stations and 11 print media.
"This aggressive election information program is made possible by a US$2 million fund provided by the United Nations Development Program," he said.
Djohermansyah said the infomericals would begin on Monday with six to 10 slots per day on radio, followed by TV stations with 10 slots per day on Jan. 26. A radio slot lasts for one minute, while one slot on TV is 30 seconds.
KPU has allotted Rp 75 billion from the state budget for the election information dissemination program and plans to add another Rp 40 billion from the 2004 state budget.