Incompetence and a lack of independence at every level of several election bodies has led to polling violence, says a watchdog group.

A majority of the 92 elections at the governor, regency and mayoral levels held after April 2010 have erupted into conflict and decreased democracy in the country, said Indonesian Civilized Circle (Lima) director Ray Rangkuti.

The General Elections Commission (KPU) and the Election Supervisory Council (Bawaslu) have failed to learn from the conflict and polling violations that occurred during the 2009 elections, he added.

“The KPU has the authority to revise election guidelines and discipline its offices at the provincial and district levels but it failed to do so. Bawaslu has a similar problem.”

Ray said the violence was followed by an increase in election-related complaints filed with the Constitutional Court. “Twenty-nine election cases were filed at the Constitutional Court in the last two-and-a-half months, as compared to only 14 in 2009.”

Ray said the Bawaslu had “no teeth” and failed to sue regional election commissions that favored candidates. The Baswalu also failed to pursue local election commissions that supported incumbent candidates instead of Indonesian law and the KPU, he said.

Indonesian Election Committee (Kopi) coordinator Jerry Sumampow said the inability of the local branches of the KPU and the Bawaslu to handle polling violations led to conflicts in Samosir regency, North Sumatra; Bengkayang regency, West Kalimantan; Paser regency, East Kalimantan; and Toli-toli, Southeast Sulawesi.

The KPU local branch in Samosir regency did not act against a candidate for regent who allegedly deployed ineligible voters from Medan, Jerry said.

The action generated a strong protest from the supporters of the incumbent regent, who was running for reelection.

“Tension is increasing in Toli-toli regency after the public set fire to the local KPU branch to protest its issuance of a contentious decree,” he said.

Fraudulent voter registrations were the most common poll problem recorded by Kopi and comprised 13.1 percent of reported election violations, followed by vote buying, (8.70 percent), vote rigging (7.60 percent),  riots and intimidation (7 percent) and other complaints (15 percent), said Jerry.

Legislator Arief Wibowo of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) said local elections should be suspended until the House of Representatives completed deliberation on the local election bill. Local elections should also be integrated with national legislative and presidential elections.

“Integration is needed to avoid different coalitions and to pursue political consistency in public administration,” Arief said.

KPU commissioners and Bawaslu members were not available for comment Monday.

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