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Simultaneous regional elections a milestone for RI democracy
Democracy counts: A foreign observer (left) observes vote calculation at a polling station in South Tangerang, on Wednesday
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span class="inline inline-center">Democracy counts: A foreign observer (left) observes vote calculation at a polling station in South Tangerang, on Wednesday. (thejakartapost.com/Wienda Parwitasari)
Regional elections, held simultaneously in several regions across Indonesia on Wednesday, are a milestone for democracy in Indonesia, a political expert has said.
Election watchdog Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) head Titi Anggraeni said on Wednesday that the simultaneous regional elections could be looked upon as momentum; improvement in the country's governance, not only in terms of the delivery of public services but also for the restructuring of authorities, which had a direct impact on the strengthening of democracy.
'There must be a guarantee that the results of these historic elections will not be damaged by any political interests. We must protect genuine votes in order to be able to turn voter wishes into a reality. There can be no room for engineering, manipulation or fraud when determining election winners,' Titi told thejakartapost.com.
The simultaneous regional head elections held on Dec.9 were a symbol of the struggle that the Indonesian people had made towards directly determining the country's leadership, the election activist further explained, referring to the decision made by the House of Representatives in September 2014 to pass a law that scrapped direct elections for local leaders.
Following intense pressure, the newly-passed law (Perppu) was annulled by then President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono when he issued a government regulation that both replaced the law and returned the people's right to directly elect their leaders.
'The simultaneous elections have not been merely a regional election process because the elections also symbolize a victory in the people's fight to contribute,' said Titi.
As many as 269 regencies and municipalities held direct elections of regional heads on Wednesday. South Tangerang became the pilot project for the 2015 regional head elections where 130 foreign observers from 30 countries monitored the election processes, from the casting of the ballot to vote counting, at several polling stations across the city. Foreign observers for the South Tangerang elections are participants of the Election Visit Program for Head of Regional Election 2015. Each are election organizers or general elections commission members from countries such as Australia, Malaysia, Palestine, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Tunisia.
Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) commissioner Nasrullah said on Wednesday that the agency had found instances of money politics practices in at least 29 regencies and municipalities during the elections.
He said most of the reported election violations had been handled by the Election Supervisory Committee (Panwas) but it was likely that the figures would continue to increase.
'In South Kalimantan, for instance, the province's Bawaslu head was caught in the midst of committing money politics,' said Nasrullah as quoted by kompas.com
He said candidate campaign teams committed money politics by distributing cash or goods to voters. Bawaslu discovered money politics in the form of cash distribution in at least 13 regencies, inclusive of Kaur (Bengkulu), Gowa (South Sulawesi) and Rokan Hulu (Riau). In Muaro (Jambi) and Kuantan Senggigi (Riau), a candidate pair allegedly distributed basic commodities to voters.
'All violations will be dealt with according to correct legal procedure, as instructed by the National Police chief [Gen.Badrodin Haiti],' said Nasrullah.
