`KPU mainly to blame' for voter list fraud cases

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Thu, 04/23/2009 2:00 PM  |  Headlines

The General Elections Commission (KPU), the government and the House of Representatives are all to blame for widespread voter list fraud, experts say.

If not resolved properly, they warned, the problem could undermine the legitimacy of the April 9 legislative election results.

"The current legislators should also bear the responsibility for the voter list fraud because they failed to monitor the registration process," former KPU member Edwin H. Soekowati said Wednesday.

"The KPU with the government's help should carry out the registration process, while political parties should be involved in the monitoring process."

Activist Hariman Siregar said political parties were too busy campaigning and seeking out coalitions to strengthen their positions.

"They have forgotten about the voter list fraud and are too busy chasing seats at the House," he said.

He added the government should consider postponing the July 8 presidential election to prevent the same problems from recurring.

"The cost of postponing the presidential election can be expensive, but to keep going with the election without proper clarification can cost the people even more," he warned.

However, Diponegoro University legal expert Hasyim Asy'ari said only KPU members should be held accountable for the fraud, while the accountability mechanism could not be applied to the President or the home minister.

"The bureaucracy does not have a mechanism to seek accountability regarding the elections," he said.

Various groups have come up with different figures for the number of eligible voters left off the voter lists.

National Commission on Human Rights chairman Ifdhal Kasim claimed 30 percent of the country's 171 million eligible voters were not unregistered.

Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) secretary-general Pramono Anung Wibowo claimed 45 million voters were left disenfranchised.

Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) chairman Prabowo Subianto said a more substantial 50 to 70 million voters were not registered.

Also Wednesday, the PDI-P's presidential campaign team claimed it had found a CD containing the KPU main server's real-time data.

"The data shows the KPU actually listed more votes than the ones shown to the public from their tabulation center," said team member Sudiatmiko Ariwibowo.

He refused to reveal the source of the CD.

The KPU's tabulation center listed only 13 million votes counted in total upon the center's closing down on April 20. However, the data received by the team shows the main server had listed around 49 million votes by that date.

The votes represent the current interim results of the legislative elections, in which the Democratic Party leads.

However, the data does not show any major changes in party ranking.

The data's latest entry on April 21 at 6:07 p.m. shows the Democratic Party still led the vote count by almost 13 million votes, or around 16 percent of the total votes, followed by the Golkar Party with 11.5 million votes and the PDI-P in third with 8.7 million votes.

"The data shows the KPU has lied to the public, and if the commission has any problems with these findings, then we challenge them to invite an independent auditor to perform an audit on their server," said PDI-P executive Hasto Kristiyanto.

This is the second piece of evidence that the team has managed to gather on possible manipulation during the recent elections.

According to another team member, Arief Wibowo, the first piece of evidence was a list of text messages about vote manipulation between "prominent figures".

The team said it would next bring the issue to the Elections Supervisory Committee and demand the President be held accountable for the voter list fraud.

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