T

he National Police have warned that Aceh and Papua could be hot spots for communal conflict during the upcoming general election.

The police'€™s security maintenance chief, Comr. Gen. Badrodin Haiti, said on Monday that rampant arms trafficking and rivalry between political parties had made Aceh vulnerable to violent clashes during the election period.

'€œIn the aftermath of the conflict [with the Free Aceh Movement or GAM] , many illegal arms have been distributed among locals. There are also some political parties engaged in conflict,'€ he said on Monday.

Badrodin was apparently referring to the Aceh Party (PA) and the Aceh National Party (PNA), which were both founded by former GAM combatants following the 2005 Helsinki agreement that ended their 30-year fight.

In the last six months, there have been at least three incidents involving PA and PNA members. The latest incident happened in January when PA supporters stormed and assaulted Ramli, a PNA supporter, after trashing PA flags.

In the same month, a PNA member, Jufrizal, was abducted and beaten by unidentified men after he flew PNA flags around his neighborhood in Lhokseumawe.

'€œWe will take the persuasive and preventive approaches. We urge leaders of the parties to take part in holding peaceful elections. It will be good if the Aceh Police initiate the declaration on peaceful elections with them,'€ Badrodin said.

Aside from Aceh, the National Police are also keeping an eye on Papua.

In recent months, spate of shooting accidents and violent attacks occurred, which the police claimed to have been perpetrated by Free Papua Movement (OPM) rebels.

Badrodin added that aside from Aceh and Papua, the police would also focus their election security operation in North Sumatra, South Sumatra, Java, South Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi, Maluku and North Maluku.

However, the police will likely face challenges in providing security measures as the government has turned down their request for more financial support.

National Police chief Gen. Sutarman said that the police were preparing to set aside Rp 600 billion (US$ 49 million) from their annual budget to support the security operation.

He said that the police had taken the measure as the government only provided around a quarter of the requested budget of Rp 3.59 trillion.

'€œThe government prepared Rp 1 trillion, but we have decided that we need at least Rp 1.6 trillion for the operation. So, we must rearrange the police budget allocation for the election security operation,'€ he said.

Some police officials have raised concerns that the Rp 1 trillion budget would barely cover the operation, which will run for 224 days from March until the inauguration of the president elect in October.