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Election officials pressured regional staff to falsify eligibility results, lawyer says
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Final check: Officials from the General Elections Commission (KPU), the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) and the Constitutional Court verify evidence related to the dispute over the 2019 legislative election results on July 5, 2019. (JP/Seto Wardhana)
As the General Elections Commission (KPU) prepares to name the political parties eligible to compete in the 2024 legislative election, lawyers representing a group of regional KPU employees have accused the commission of meddling in the process and have threatened to take legal action.
Speaking at the KPU headquarters in Jakarta on Tuesday, lawyer Ibnu Syamsu Hidayat gave the commission a week to respond to the accusations and stop any attempts to manipulate the results of the “factual verification” process through the intimidation of regional KPU members.
"We suspect there’s been an ethical violation and we’re prepared to bring this issue to the Election Organization Ethics Council [DKPP] or to law enforcement agencies if there’s a criminal element," Ibnu said.
The factual verification stage is the last step in deciding if nine political parties that are not currently represented in the legislature can nominate candidates for the 2024 election. Since October, the KPU and its regional offices have been determining if the parties have met the commission’s electoral criteria.
While maintaining his clients’ anonymity, Ibnu said they had all been intimidated by people from the KPU central office in Jakarta to change the status of several political parties that had actually failed the factual verification process. Ibnu named the Gelora Party, Garuda Party and Nusantara Awakening Party (PKN) – all newcomers – as the parties that the central office officials had allegedly demanded be approved.
KPU chairman Hasyim Asy'ari claimed the commission would investigate the matter internally, saying, "We'll look into the issue first.”
Earlier, a coalition of civil society organizations from South Sulawesi made similar allegations against the KPU. Speaking at a press conference on Sunday that was also attended by Ibnu, coalition member Samsang Syamsir claimed certain people had taken advantage of the lack of transparency in the local KPU offices’ Political Party Information System (SIPOL) database to manipulate the data behind the scenes. She did not reveal their identities.
