A special House of Representatives committee revealed recently that some 49 milion people were not registered to vote in the upcoming presidential election.
The finding casts doubts over whether the General Elections Commission (KPU) has fixed the electoral roll that it came under fire for in the recent legislative elections.
The committee assigned to investigate the electoral roll fraud in the April 9 legislative election, discovered the discrepancy during recent visits to numerous provinces, including East and West Java, Sulawesi and Papua.
"The unregistered were found found across the country in regions including East Java, Papua and Sulawesi," Eva Kusuma Sundari, a member of the special committee and legislator of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) told The Jakarta Post in Jakarta on Wednesday.
"In conflict regions, such as Papua, we also found a lot of fictitious voters," Eva said.
The electoral roll mismanagement in the recent legislative polls was believed to have denied some 47 million people the right to vote, leaving the government and the General Election Commission (KPU) under fire. The Home Ministry and the polling body, which were responsible for the electoral roll, have blamed each other for the fiasco.
However, Eva said it would be difficult to complete investigations before the House's recess period, which runs from July 3 to mid-August.
"We will continue our investigations after the recess. We will summon witnesses, local bureaucrats and Home Ministry officials, as well as commission *KPU* members, in the first week after the recess," she said.
Eva also said the findings confirmed the committee's suspicion that the KPU and the ministry had not done enough to verify electoral rolls.
"The quality of the electoral roll used in the presidential race will be no better than that used in the legislative elections," she said.
Separately, the national deputy of The People's Voters Education Network (JPPR), Yusfitriadi, said he was disappointed with the polling body and the Elections Supervisory Body (Bawaslu).
"It seems the polling body has failed to learn from the previous fraud," he said, adding that the unresolved electoral roll issues had raised questions about the commission's neutrality.
JPPR coordinator Daniel Zuchron said Bawaslu had to investigate electoral roll fraud and announce the results and its recommendations to the commission.
"The elections supervisory committee should not act like a mail man, sending reports to the police and then taking no further action," Zuchron said.
"The government has poured so much funding into both the commission and Bawaslu. It's ironic that the money is not followed up with better performance," he added.
Despite criticisms and increasing protests, the General Election Commission (KPU) gave up, saying it did not know who should be blamed for the unregistered voters since it had worked as well as it could.
"The voter registration has its deadline on June 8 and we cannot do anything if many voters still remain unregistered," KPU Chief Abdul Hafiz Anshary said during a hearing with the Commission II on home affairs at the House of Representatives.
However, he said his side would take account of the unregistered voters. (hdt)
