Bowing to protests from media organizations, the General Elections Commission (KPU) has decided to amend its 2013 regulation on campaign guidelines as it was considered inimical to press freedom.

The decision was reached after the commission consulted the Press Council and the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI), KPU commissioner Ferry Kurnia Rizkiyansyah said on Wednesday.

'We will drop Article 46 on media sanctions. We agree that the authority to control the media does not lie with us. The KPU only has the power to organize the elections. We don't want to be perceived as overlapping with press bodies,' he said.

Ferry was referring to Article 46 of KPU Regulation No. 1/2013 on guidelines for election campaigns, which stipulates that broadcasting and publishing permits of media outlets can be revoked if they are considered to violate campaign regulations.

Another KPU commissioner, Arief Budiman, said the issue of media sanctions referred to Article 45, which stipulates that the authority to control, monitor, and punish the media lay with the KPI and the Press Council.

KPI commissioner Idy Muzayyad applauded the KPU's decision. 'We no longer have different perceptions as to who actually has the power to control the media,' Idy said as quoted by Antara news agency.

Idy added that the KPI would utilize its standard broadcasting guidelines to monitor the media's behavior during the open campaign period.

The 2013 KPU regulation was also previously scrutinized for requiring all media outlets to provide equal coverage on every legislative candidate.

Ferry said the KPU had actually never intended to curb press freedom. The KPU, he said, had merely desired to create an ideal campaign atmosphere for all candidates, including those who had strong media and financial support and those who did not.

A number of the country's media outlets are now controlled by politicians, whose parties will contest the 2014 election.

NasDem Party chairman Surya Paloh is the owner of Metro TV news channel and the Media Indonesia daily, while Golkar Party chairman and presidential candidate Aburizal Bakrie partly owns news channels TVOne and ANTV as well as the Vivanews online news portal.

Hary Tanoesoedibjo, who controls the country's largest media network ' PT Media Nusantara Citra (MNC) ' is the chief patron of the People's Conscience (Hanura) Party.

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