W

ith four months left of the campaign period for the 2019 presidential election, Coordinating Political, Law and Security Minister Wiranto has given an assurance that security will be maintained nationwide in the midst of the political process.

“There have been some political incidents recently, which have disturbed the country’s security and given us cause for concern, but we’re here to fix all of these,” he said on Monday.

Among the incidents referred to was the discovery of thousands of discarded e-ID cards in several areas across the country. Home Minister Tjahjo Kumolo has asked law enforcers to immediately destroy invalid and damaged e-ID cards.

In addition, a man was arrested for allegedly selling official blank e-ID cards earlier this month. The police said the advertising of the blank cards online turned out to be a prank.

“As facilitators of the election process, government bodies are doing their best to facilitate the polls. There’s no need to speculate otherwise,” Wiranto said.

Wiranto also highlighted the finding of 25 million duplicate voter names registered on the temporary voter list, which had been reported by the coalition supporting Gerindra Party chairman Prabowo Subianto. The coalition currently has a list of 137 million voters, fewer than the 185 million voters previously declared by the General Elections Commission (KPU).

“Now we have 192.8 million voters on our final voter list,” Wiranto said.

On Dec. 11, individuals from the Prabowo-Sandiaga Uno campaign team posted the trending hashtag #TolakDPTSiluman on Twitter, which demanded that the government correct the voter list.

Supporters of the President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo-Ma’ruf Amin ticket responded coolly to the issue. “We should work together, supporters of both sides, to encourage the KPU to guarantee our constitutional rights,” secretary-general of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Hasto Kristiyanto said, as quoted by kompas.com.

Wiranto also cited the vandalism of flags and banners of the Democratic Party in Pekanbaru, Riau, on Saturday, just as chairman Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was visiting the city.

The Pekanbaru Police have named two suspects, identified as KS and MW.

Police apprehended the two suspects on Sunday after they were allegedly found tearing down flags in Tenayan Raya district.

Wiranto said he believed that the vandalism was carried out by individuals, without the knowledge of any political party leadership.

He added that President Jokowi had reminded state officials and law enforcers to remain impartial.

Djayadi Hanan, chief researcher at Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting said it was unlikely there would be security issues as long as the election commission and other election organizers worked professionally. So far, he said, no matters of serious concern had arisen.

“The scattered e-IDs and the questions surrounding the voter list have happened in Indonesia several times before. I think those issues have been resolved already. We have held elections thousands of times and have been relatively safe,” he told The Jakarta Post.

A member of the campaign team for the Prabowo-Sandiaga ticket, Nizar Zahro said, however, that an election could be considered successful only if it passed off fairly and provided there were no more such issues.

“This is the responsibility of the government because if these cases are left unchecked, it could trigger dissatisfaction,” Nizar said, adding that all these issues were a serious threat to democracy and the government should not finish the investigation until it found out who was behind them. (ggq)