By Andi Abdussalam
Jakarta, Dec 28 (ANTARA) - The government will hold a legislative election on April 9, 2009, but it seems that the General Election Commission (KPU) is racing against time in the remaining three months to prepare the election logistics.
Even, the procurement of logistics has not yet been put out to tender, raising public concerns that it would affect the election process.
Secretary General of the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (FITRA), Yuna Farhan, said that the KPU should name the winners of the tender soon and carry out the logistics procurement as scheduled.
"The printing of ballot papers should have been finished in February so that they would have been distributed in March 2009," she said in a discussion on the tender of the election logistics procurement last week.
In an effort to remove the barriers that might hamper the preparations and the implementation of the elections, the government on Saturday held a consultation meeting with leaders of the relevant state institutions such as the KPU, the Elections Supervisory Board (Bawaslu), the Elections Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu), the House of Representatives (DPR) and the Constitutional Court (MK).
One of the issues discussed in the consultation meeting was the procurement of the 2009 election logistics. The government and the KPU agreed to speed up the tender process so that procurement could be made soon.
KPU Chairman Abdul Hafiz Anshary said the meeting agreed that for the sake of the implementation of the elections, the logistics procurement could be made even if it was not in line with Presidential Decree No. 80/2003. The decree regulates the procurement of government's goods and services.
"The meeting even discussed the possibility for the government to issue a new presidential decree on the procurement of elections logistics," Anshary said.
The 2003 decree stipulates that companies which offer the lowest price are to be named winners of the tender. Thus, it is considered that the implementation of the decree will have potential risks because companies with lowest price offers may have no capability to provide enough elections logistics.
Besides the need to issue a new presidential decree, the meeting also suggested that the government should set the price itself for the logistics procurement in order to prevent naming incompetent companies.
According to Hafiz, Vice President Jusuf Kalla suggested during the meeting that the price be fixed by a government team with members composing of representatives from the Trade Ministry, the Industry Ministry and the Development and Financial Supervisory Agency (BPKP).
"So, there are two alternatives, namely whether to call for a tender based on a new presidential decree or based on the vice president's suggestion," the KPU chairman said.
The solution to speed up the tender process for the procurement of the election logistics will be discussed again between the government and the KPU as well as the Bawaslu this week.
The tender process for the procurement of the election logistics is now still in the verification stage. Hafiz said logistics should have been distributed to all regions in March 2009.
According to Yuna Farhan, logistics for the general elections, particularly the ballot papers, should be prepared on time so that the election proceedings would not be disturbed.
"The KPU should have named the winners of the tender for the procurement of the ballot papers this month (December) to allow the printing process to start in January 2009," she said.
Hayie Muhammad of the Indonesian Procurement Watch (IPW) expressed the same voice, saying that if the winners of the tender had not yet been decided this month (December), the printing of the ballot papers could be delayed from the target in January.
"The KPU should pay attention to the ballot paper problem because it will disturb the elections if its distribution is delayed," he said.
Actually, President Yudhoyono has felt the urgency of naming the tender winners soon. He told a press conference on Saturday that the government hoped the tender for the procurement of the election logistics would be called for as soon as possible.
After all, the government has promised to disburse the budget for the KPU based on the election preparation stages. The elections should be held in accordance with plans.
Therefore, the government is trying its best to make the election process run smoothly. It is also prepared to issue a government regulation in lieu of law (Perpu) to overcome problems hampering the implementation of the election.
"The government is ready to issue a government regulation in lieu of law to overcome laws which have provisions that hamper the elections," the president said.
So far, there have been findings in the field that there are laws whose provisions are not supportive to the smooth implementation of the elections.
In this case, according to the president, the government might issue a Perpu to overcome regulations which in the field turned out to cause difficulties for the election process.
He cited as an example the tight requirements needed for a person to become a member of the Elections Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu). On paper, it is an ideal regulation but in the field it poses difficulties because it is too tight that suitable personnel are difficult to recruit.
The other problem found is the law which stipulates that a ballot paper would be invalid if it has two check marks during the polls.
"Based on the law, ballot papers with two check marks are invalid whereas it is quite possible that a voter would place one check mark for the political party and another one for the candidate," the president said.
He said it was advantageous for the law which stipulated that a ballot paper would be valid if it was ticked with one check mark only. This was because it could lead to many votes to be declared invalid.
"All These could be overcome by the issuance of a Perpu so that no political party would have its interest harmed," the president said. T.A014/A/HNG/B003) 28-12-2008 22:12:40
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