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SBY wants end to local poll violence
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono expressed concern over recent riots in regional elections that have tarnished the image of democracy, calling for increased security to prevent violence from recurring
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resident Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono expressed concern over recent riots in regional elections that have tarnished the image of democracy, calling for increased security to prevent violence from recurring.
“If we cannot stop these acts of violence, it would be a setback for democracy. We don’t want the people to become victims,” the President said Thursday during a two-day national working meeting at the Bogor Presidential Palace, which was attended by ministers, state enterprise executives, governors and businesses.
Yudhoyono said most riots were provoked by certain parties that had their own interests in election results and that the riots should be thoroughly investigated.
“The candidates and their campaign teams might be involved [in the riots],” he said.
Antara quoted Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Djoko Suyanto as saying that the riots were impulsive reactions by the candidates’ campaign teams and their supporters, who were disappointed with election results.
He said candidates, their teams and their supporters were not aware that they were partially responsible for security during the elections.
“All this time, [security] has not been properly coordinated,” Djoko said, adding the government would promote the awareness of shared responsibility in several regions.
Indonesia is scheduled to have 244 local elections this year.
Djoko said eight of 123 regions conducting elections were rocked by riots.
Earlier this year, an angry mob set cars on fire to protest their candidate’s disqualification from elections in Mojokerto, East Java.
Similar incidents flared up in Bima and Sumbawa in West Nusa Tenggara, Bengkayang in West Kalimantan, and Samosir in North Sumatra.
Legislators called in June for an amendment to existing election regulations to avoid future disputes after discovering that more than 50 percent of elections resulted in controversies.
Between April and May this year, the Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) reported 1,645 electoral violations, with most occurring during the vote-counting process.
Muslim scholar Azyumardi Azra said Thursday at a seminar on nationalism that some processes in regional elections should be reviewed as they were prone to causing conflict.
“Regional elections are more emotional in character, thus have a high potential of ending in violence.”
Azyumardi said that to avoid decentralization triggering segregation and conflict, the election process should be simplified.
“The number of parties should be reduced. Smaller parties should merge with larger ones because they are at risk of engaging in vote buying [to gain popularity],” he said.
Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) researcher Syamsudin Haris said regional elections were laden with problems.
“They need to be evaluated, but we don’t need to go back to a central planning system,” he said, adding that it would be better if regional leaders were from the same political party as the nation’s leader.
“That would fit better with the President’s scheme,” he said.
Indonesia’s democracy is a presidential system in which the head of state is also the chief executive.
Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party has not achieved as much success at local levels this year as at the national level.
Syamsudin said that if national elections were held before local ones, there would be a higher possibility that local leaders would be from the same party as the President.
