Despite hopes that the current election cycle would play out as fairly and peacefully as possible, we instead have one of the first documented cases of violence at a campaign, as well as multiple allegations of election fraud and cheating.

Last week, a video clip went viral that appeared to show military personnel in Boyolali assaulting a passing motorcyclist, who was reportedly returning from a Ganjar Pranowo-Mahfud MD campaign event in the Central Java town known as a stronghold of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which endorses the ticket.

A second video shows the victim, wearing a shirt with campaign attributes, lying in a hospital bed bruised and battered with his teeth allegedly punched out.

Ganjar’s team has pressured the Indonesian Military (TNI) to take responsibility and even accused the institution of colluding with a rival camp. One campaign team member said the assault was a test case for electoral integrity.

On Tuesday, the Diponegoro Military Command overseeing Central Java confirmed that six soldiers have been detained and named suspects in relation to the incident.

A week earlier, a supporter of presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto was shot by two unidentified gunmen in Sampang on Madura Island in East Java. The police, however, have declined to speculate whether the incident is related to the election.

While we must express regret that this sort of violence is even happening at the height of the campaigning season, it is reassuring that at least some institutions can still be relied on to take immediate steps to remedy such a situation.

Other authorities, particularly the Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu), would do well to show similar resolve, especially when it comes to alleged electoral misconduct.

After just a month of campaigning, all three candidate pairs, Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin Iskandar, Prabowo-Gibran Rakabuming Raka and Ganjar-Mahfud, have been accused of violating election rules.

Most recently, vice presidential candidate Gibran was reported to Bawaslu for violating a Jakarta regulation that bans campaign activities at Car-Free Day events.

Gibran was found handing out milk cartons to children at one such event in Jakarta early last month. He denied that giving away milk constituted campaigning, even though he made a promise during the last televised debate to give out free milk and lunch for children to combat stunting.

And yet, instead of summoning President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s eldest son to explain, Bawaslu dilly-dallied.

Bawaslu’s Central Jakarta branch said it was expecting Gibran at its office on Tuesday, but the Surakarta mayor failed to turn up. A member of the Prabowo-Gibran camp urged Bawaslu to be clear about the summons.

Making a fuss about unspilled milk may seem like a frivolous pursuit for the election watchdog, but we expect Bawaslu to do its job and be assertive and impartial, especially if an allegation concerns a president’s son.

While it is arguable that violations are bound to happen in a country as big as Indonesia, for one of the world’s most logistically challenging simultaneous elections, it is all the more important that authorities are able to show that they can put their foot down when it matters the most.

Candidates and their supporters must also be held responsible for keeping the elections clean and more civil, as they have promised on various occasions. The onus is on them to keep tensions low and prevent the violence and division of the 2014 and 2019 elections from recurring.

In the past, international think tanks may have judged the legal frameworks for elections in Indonesia to be largely democratic and the electoral authorities as mostly impartial, but the events of the past year have given us much pause.

We will never tire of repeating our point: There is simply too much at stake in this election.