T

he General Elections Commission (KPU) has completed its audit of the 2014 legislative election-campaign fund reports submitted by the 12 parties that had contested the April 4 poll.

KPU chairman Husni Kamil Manik said that the commission had found no indication that any of the parties had violated campaign fund regulations.

'€œWe laud the work of parties'€™ central executive boards [DPP], which have followed all the regulations on campaign fund reports. There were no parties or elected candidates whose results were canceled because of problems with their campaign fund reports,'€ he told a press conference at the KPU headquarters in Menteng, Central Jakarta, on Wednesday.

Also present in the press briefing were representatives from the Indonesian Accountants Association (IAI); the Indonesian Association of Public Accountants (IAPI); the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK); the Elections Monitoring Agency (Bawaslu); Election and Democracy Watchdog (Perludem); and the People'€™s Voters Education Network (JPPR).

Husni said the whole audit process had been conducted in line with all procedures and that the KPU had also given the parties guidance while they complied the reports.

KPU commissioner Ferry Kurnia Rizkiyansyah said earlier that the audit results would be published on the KPU website.

'€œ[The audit will be made available to the public] at least 10 days after the audit results are given to the parties,'€ he said.

Husni said publishing the audit results was part of efforts to be transparent.

'€œFor the public, this information is very important. They want to know how money from the public was spent during the election.'€

Husni said the audit could also be used by parties to improve election bookkeeping.

'€œHopefully these results will be a tool that parties can use to better manage their campaign funds in the future,'€ Husni said.

In its audit, the KPU uncovered problems in candidates'€™ reports, such as those who had failed to include details about donations from individual donors.

Husni said the KPU could do little to punish the errant candidates because the law only applied to parties, not legislative candidates.

'€œThis is a lesson for the future [...] every legislative candidate should also be obliged to report their campaign funds, not just the parties,'€ Husni said.

Commenting on the results, Sunanto of the JPPR said it was nothing but a formality.

He said that private audit firms (KAP) tasked to audit the parties'€™ campaign fund reports had failed to follow up on irregularities found in the reports by the JPPR, such as legislative candidates that had failed to report donations to their parties.

'€œWhy should the KPU spend so much of the state'€™s money to audit the reports if the results are rife with flaws like that?'€ Sunanto said.

Responding to the criticism, the KPU said members of the public should look at the audit results themselves. '€œJust study the audit results,'€ he said.