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Violations keep Bawaslu busy as KPU counts votes
Although the concurrent legislative and presidential elections were held more than a week ago, the state elections watchdog’s workload has not got any easier
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span>Although the concurrent legislative and presidential elections were held more than a week ago, the state elections watchdog’s workload has not got any easier.
The Elections Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) has recorded more than 7,000 reported violations since the campaign season kicked off in September. Of these cases, 343 indicate criminal offenses and 5,167 indicate administrative violations, 121 indicate ethics violations and 696 indicate other types of violations.
Almost every day since polling day on April 17, supporters of presidential tickets Joko “Jokowi” Widodo-Ma’ruf Amin and Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Uno have held rallies in front of the offices of Bawaslu and the General Elections Commission (KPU).
Prabowo-Sandiaga supporters have demanded the KPU and Bawaslu maintain fairness and have asked them to disqualify the Jokowi-Ma’ruf pair for alleged fraud, while Jokowi-Ma’ruf supporters have demonstrated their support for both electoral organizations, even placing floral bouquets along the road to the KPU office in Central Jakarta.
On Wednesday, Bawaslu met dozens of pro-Prabowo figures, including Gerindra Party politician Ferry Juliantono, Crescent Star Party (PBB) politician Ahmad Yani and Muslim cleric Ansufri Idrus Sambo.
Claiming there have been 1,200 cases of election fraud in a variety of provinces, they demanded that Bawaslu and the Election Organization Ethics Council (DKPP) replace the KPU’s commissioners.
The group also reported vote-buying practices in several areas.
“The situation has got worse since voting day. Some pollsters seem to have legitimized the fraud with their biased quick count results [...] the KPU’s website is also full of frauds because the numbers stated are incompatible with what is stated in some C1 vote-tally forms,” the group claimed.
The KPU is in the process of collecting C1 vote-tally forms and counting votes from all districts in the country while holding re-votes in several areas that experienced technical glitches on election day. Campaign teams, political parties and legislative candidates have been closely following the process from polling stations.
As of Thursday afternoon, the KPU website had collected and uploaded tallies from 34 percent of more than 800,000 polling stations, with Jokowi-Ma’ruf so far securing 56.1 percent while Prabowo-Sandiaga has garnered 43.9 percent of the vote. Early counts from pollsters have forecast a victory for the incumbent with 54 to 55 percent of the vote.
Bawaslu head Abhan said the agency would process all the reports, but he said to follow up the allegations, the agency needed each party to back up their claims with evidence.
Bawaslu commissioner Rahmat Bagja said the agency was not simply ignoring such reports. It has recommended re-voting in 529 polling stations that were marred by errors.
For example, a revote has been recommended for one polling station in Nias regency, North Sumatra, after the polling station working committee (KPPS) officials and voters were found to have committed violations. The
agency learned of the case after a video of people appearing to stuff ballot boxes went viral on social media.
“We have issued 529 revote recommendations, including one in Nias. All the revote recommendations were made after criminal and administrative violations were evident,” Rahmat said.
Responding to complaints on the frequent mistakes made by election officials in uploading the numbers from scanned C1 forms, Rahmat said Bawaslu had sent a letter to the KPU, warning the election organizer to be more careful in counting the vote.
Previously, the KPU said human error caused false data inputs into its system, but the commission said that it had fixed errors right away after public reports, and the counting process was also accessible to the public at the KPU office.
“Do not repeat these mistakes [...] If it happens repeatedly, for example, in thousands of polling stations, then that’s bad,” Rahmat said.
Bawaslu said it would also continue investigating other reported cases, both in the country and overseas.
“We will monitor our recommendations on poll extensions in Sydney, Australia. Sydney’s Overseas Elections Committee [PPLN] should carry out our recommendation. If not, they will commit a criminal offense by violating the election, which carries a two-year prison sentence. We’ve warned them,” he said.
