T

he Elections Monitoring Agency (Bawaslu) is preparing a summons letter for Indonesian Military (TNI) commander Gen. Moeldoko over an alleged election violation committed by a member of the TNI in Jakarta.

Bawaslu member Daniel Zuchron said the summons was part of the agency'€™s inquiry into reports that a non-commissioned officer (Babinsa) intimidated a person in Central Jakarta to have them vote for the Gerindra Party'€™s presidential candidate, Prabowo Subianto, a former commander of the Army'€™s Special Forces (Kopassus).

'€œTo confirm the allegation, we have gathered information from the site. We want the TNI commander to listen to our findings,'€ Daniel said over the phone on Friday, while declining to reveal the findings.

'€œWe take the case seriously. The TNI must be neutral, and should not be involved in politics in any way,'€ he said.

The allegation against the Babinsa first emerged on a social media site on Thursday.

Media reports said that early on Tuesday, a resident from a predominantly Chinese neighborhood in Central Jakarta was visited by a man claiming to be a non-commissioned officer who said he had been assigned to verify data of eligible voters in the neighborhood. He was later alleged to be registering the intention of locals in the area to vote for Prabowo.

Responding to the report, TNI spokesman Maj. Gen. Fuad Basya said the military had ordered the Army to launch a probe into the allegation.

The scandal surfaced only a few days after President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had warned several military and police generals, who had been approached by political parties to gain their support in the upcoming election, to steer clear of politics.

Meanwhile, Central Jakarta district military command (Kodim) chief Let. Col. Yudi Pranoto suggested that the incident had merely been a '€œmisunderstanding'€ between the Babinsa and the local man.

Army spokesperson Brig. Gen. Andhika Perkasa, however, said Yudi'€™s statement did not represent the Army'€™s stance.

'€œWe are still trying to get information to determine what really happened,'€ Andhika said on Friday.

Prabowo'€™s campaign team has denied its involvement in the alleged incident, which it said had discredited its candidate. Meanwhile, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle'€™s (PDI-P) presidential hopeful, Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo, reacted strongly to the case.

Both camps have insisted that the incident be thoroughly investigated.

Sirra Prayuna, a lawyer for Jokowi'€™s campaign team, visited Bawaslu on Thursday to report the case, saying that the intimidation of voters by Babinsa could diminish Jokowi'€™s hopes of winning the July 9 election.

Similar allegations have surfaced that suggest the proactive campaigning by Babinsa for Prabowo has not been confined to Jakarta.

Seknas Jokowi, a volunteer support organization for Jokowi, has accused several Babinsa officers in Gunung Kidul, Yogyakarta, of distributing campaign paraphernalia in support of Prabowo to locals.

'€œOur branch in Gunung Kidul informed us that on Thursday, the subdistrict military command [Koramil] handed over campaign material belonging to Jokowi'€™s rival to Babinsa officers. However, the officers have not yet distributed the material to local residents,'€ the organization'€™s secretary general, Dono Prasetyo, said.

Dono added that the organization would collect more information about the case before reporting the matter to the relevant election bodies.