With the general elections less than six months away, voters remain largely ignorant about the details of the process, particularly the changes to the ballot papers, officials have warned.
A recent survey by the Indonesian chapter of the International Foundation for the Electoral System (IFES) found that about 80 percent of voters had either little or no knowledge about the new electoral process, Endang Sulastri of the General Elections Commission (KPU) said Thursday.
Most respondents were aware of next year's election, but only 12 percent said they knew it would take place in April, Endang said at a discussion on the role of the media in the elections, organized by state-run radio broadcaster RRI. "There is a still a huge information deficit as far as public awareness about the 2009 elections is concerned," she said.
The survey found voters had a strong interest in receiving information about nearly every aspect of the process, including the candidates, the election dates, voter registration, electorates and campaigns.
The parliamentary election is scheduled for April 9. This will be followed by the presidential election in July, which will go to a second round in September if necessary.
IFES senior adviser Henry Valentino said the biggest challenge facing the KPU was in informing the public about the new electoral process, which would be vastly different from that in 2004.
The differences include the way people vote for the party and candidates of their choice, the larger number of political parties contesting the election (up from 24 to 38) and the changes in electoral boundaries.
This information gap is despite the strong public interest in taking part in the elections, as shown by the survey. More than 90 percent of the respondents claimed to have a strong desire to participate in the political process.
Endang said that unless the media rose to the challenge to close the information gap, the election could be disastrous, not only for the country's politics but also for the economy as it would sow the seeds of instability.
She said she had detected some election fatigue among voters because of the large number of local elections at the village, city, regency and province levels that have been held across the nation in the past three years.
This fatigue has led to low voter turnout at some of these elections, with turnout at 50 percent in at least two elections, and at 60 percent for many others.
While urging the media to take a more active role in raising public awareness about the election, Valentino said the media must adhere to the principles of fair and balanced reporting, maintain independence from political and business interests and provide equal access to paid political advertisements.
He also cautioned the media not to report on exit polls until all the voting stations had closed.
An observer of Indonesia's 1999 and 2004 elections, Valentino praised the Indonesian media's coverage of elections as "very sophisticated".
