Watchdogs gear up for polls as violation reports pile up

Watchdogs gear up for polls as violation reports pile up

JAKARTA (JP): Thousands of poll monitors across the country
are bracing for Monday's general election, billed as the most
democratic in over 40 years despite mounting reports of elections
violations.

In Bandung, West Java, the provincial elections monitoring
committee called on poll officials not to prevent student poll
monitors from obtaining cards which enable them to vote in
locations other than where they are registered.

Some 40,000 students across the province have joined the
Rector's Forum, and thousands more have joined two
internationally respected domestic poll watchdogs; the University
Forum for Free and Fair Elections (Unfrel) and the Independent
Elections Monitoring Committee (KIPP).

"The student volunteers must scatter around the province to
watch the poll process and won't be able to cast their ballots in
polling stations near their homes. We will lose lots of votes if
the students fail to obtain the cards," a provincial elections
committee member, Goeswin Agus, said.

Goeswin said he had received complaints from a number of
student volunteers who were encountering difficulties obtaining
the cards.

The professor of mathematics at the Bandung Institute of
Technology also said the monitoring committee would not accept
incomplete reports of elections violations from the volunteers.

"I want them to watch the whole ballot process until the poll
officials finish writing their report on the balloting," Goeswin
said.

He said the committee would sue independent poll monitors if
their reports of violations proved to be untrue.

More than 25 million people in the province are eligible to
vote on Monday. They will cast their ballots at some 54,500
polling stations.

While complaining about the Riau Elections Committee's
decision not to allow 4,500 Unfrel volunteers to observe the
polls in the province, Unfrel national coordinator Todung Mulya
Lubis warned on Sunday of groups who were attempting to disrupt
the work of the poll monitors.

Todung urged police and security authorities to guarantee the
safety of Unfrel volunteers, saying the unnamed groups could use
force to disrupt the monitors.

He also criticized the Riau Elections Committee's decision to
ignore a June 2 message from the General Elections Commission
that all registered poll monitors, including the 4,500 Unfrel
volunteers posted in Riau, were eligible to monitor the polls.

From Bandar Lampung, Antara reported the Joint Forum for
Monitoring Elections in Lampung held a ceremony at Saburai Enggal
sports hall to mark the deployment of more than 10,000 poll
monitors to some 7,000 polling stations across the province.

On Saturday, foreign poll monitors grouped in the
International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National
Democratic Institute (NDI) arrived in Jayapura, Irian Jaya, for
Monday's elections.

Elizabeth Dugan, IRI's resident program director for Southeast
Asia, said her volunteers would monitor the polls in Merauke
regency. Provincial elections committee chief Ben Vincen Djehatu
said a team of two NDI poll monitors would be posted in Jayapura,
the provincial capital.

Five foreign observers from IRI and the International
Foundation for Elections Systems have arrived in Banjarmasin,
South Kalimantan. They will join more than 6,000 domestic poll
monitors.

In Bandung, European Union Ambassador John Gwyn Morgan said
the international community would not hesitate to impose
sanctions on Indonesia if Monday's elections were not free and
fair.

"Indonesia will bear some consequences for failing to meet the
expectations for a free and fair general election. Apart from
generating an illegitimate government, unfair and unfree
elections would prompt stern action from Indonesia's business
partners against the country," Morgan said.

Reports of violations included the reluctance of supporters of
the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle to remove
communication posts in East Java by the Sunday deadline. An
executive of the party, Sunardi, discounted a warning from the
provincial elections committee, saying the posts were built not
only for the party but for the people. (34/43/nur/anr/amd)