Hopefuls turn to ethics council over voters’ list

Representatives of four candidates in the upcoming Jakarta gubernatorial election filed a complaint with the Election Organizer Ethics Council (DKPP) on Thursday over what they claimed was the poll commission’s lack of transparency in drafting the voters’ list.

The four election candidates include the pairs of Joko “Jokowi” Widodo-Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, Hidayat Nur Wahid-Didik J. Rachbini, Alex Noerdin-Nono Sampono and Hendardji Soepandji-Ahmad Riza Patria.

Their supporters brought along a list of more than 350,000 voters that they considered to be irregular in the finalized voters’ list issued by the Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPU Jakarta).

The ethics council does not have the authority to change the voters’ list, but it has the power to impose sanctions on KPU members found guilty of an ethics breach.

DKPP member Nur Hidayat Sardini said that the council would first thoroughly study the report.

“We will also still receive any additional reports from them if needed. But we will limit the time, so that it will not disturb the election schedule,” Nurhidayat said.

This is the latest move by the four to challenge the KPU Jakarta’s list. Previously, they accused the poll body and the city’s registry agency of manipulating the electoral roll.

They also filed a class action lawsuit against the KPU Jakarta at the Central Jakarta District Court over the voters’ list fiasco.

The KPU Jakarta admitted there were a number of duplicate voters on its final roll, but said it had taken measures to ensure the voters could not vote more than once.

Dahlia Umar, the poll body’s chairperson, said that there were around 21,000 names listed more than once in the voters’ roll.

“However, we have marked their names and have ordered the local election committee to only give these names one voting invitation and one voter’s card, so they cannot vote more than once,” Dahlia said.

She also said that the use of election ink would help prevent multiple vote casters. “We will continue combing the voters’ list to prevent fraud in the election,” Dahlia said.

Earlier this month, the KPU Jakarta announced that the final voters’ list for the upcoming gubernatorial election comprised the names of 6,983,692 people and 15,059 polling stations across the capital.

On the preliminary list of voters, the poll body had recorded a total of 7,044,991 voters. Jakarta’s second direct gubernatorial election is slated for July 11, with the official campaign period to start on June 24 and last for two weeks.

Separately on Thursday, the Jakarta Police revealed that they would deploy 40,356 officers to safeguard the city during the election process, comprising 3,303 officers from the city police headquarters, 5,899 from the police offices of the six regions in the city, and 10 from the National Police headquarters. In addition, 700 military officers and 30,444 public order officers would also be under the police’s command to safeguard the election. (riz)