Committee receives 28 applicants for KPU, Bawaslu members

After only two weeks following its establishment, the government’s committee tasked to select members of the country’s top election organizing bodies had so far received only 28 applicants, even though registration will close within less than 10 working days.

The committee, which is assigned to select 14 General Elections Commission (KPU) member candidates and 10 General Elections Monitoring Body (Bawaslu) member candidates by the end of February, will close its registration proceedings on Jan. 6, 2012.

“As of today, as many as 80 people have come and taken KPU registration forms, but only 19 have returned them. For the Bawaslu, as many as 37 forms have been taken but only nine returned them,” Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) political expert and committee member Siti Zuhro said on Tuesday.

She said the low number of applicants has raised concerns over committee members.

“We surely don’t want to have the upcoming 2014 elections full of controversy like in 2009. Therefore, we need competent and clean figures to be KPU and Bawaslu members,” she added.

Siti, however, said that she hoped the number of applicants would jump during the last days of the registration period.

After closing registration, the committee will hold a series of administrative and competence tests for all applicants to select 14 KPU and 10 Bawaslu member candidates.

Successful candidates will be interviewed in March before House of Representatives members who will eventually choose seven and five new KPU and Bawaslu members respectively.

The new KPU and Bawaslu members are expected to be inaugurated in April.