| Jakarta, April 4 (ANTARA) - The legislative elections are less than a week away but the General Elections Commission (KPU) is still facing technical problems which are feared to become a reason to delay the polls scheduled for April 9, 2009.
"I am worried about the distribution of ballots, whether they could arrive at the polling stations on time," KPU chairman Abdul Hafiz Anshary said. Elections District Committees (PPK) should have received the ballot papers on Friday.
Deputy Chief of KPU for logistics affairs Boradi has predicted that only about 60 percent of ballot papers had arrived in the PPK so far. Therefore, Abdul Hafiz Anshary worried whether or not the ballots would arrive at the polling stations on April 8, a day before the election is held.
The 2008 elections law requires all elections material to reach polling stations a day before the voting day.
Besides, the slow distribution of ballots, KPU also faced problems with the increasing number of fictitious voters' lists appearing in many regions. Ray Rangkuti, director of 'Lingkar Madani', civil society non-governmental organization, was quoted by Media Indonesia daily a saying that the problem of voters' list and other elections logistics had the potential to create unrest.
Based on reports, many fictitious voters were included in the lists. There are even lists which included the names of police and military personnel, and more ironically, about 1,200 patients of a mental hospital in Grogol, West Jakarta, were included in the list.
According to data made available at the Elections Supervisory Body (Bawaslu), at least 300 million damaged ballot papers have not yet been replaced. Damaged ballots are found almost in all regions. KPU has decided not to receive requests for damaged ballot replacements.
In the meantime, the distribution of logistics also faced problems. Not all regions could be accessed with transportation means. The government admitted that regions in two provinces are quite difficult to access, namely regions in Central Kalimantan and Papua provinces.
Poll watchdogs have expressed concern about the quality of the elections, citing shoddy preparations that had snagged mainly on logistics and voters' list problems.
"We don't want to contest the KPU data. We are just asking the poll body to reveal the real facts of the logistical problems so everybody can help the polls carry out the elections on time," Jeirry Sumampauw, coordinator of the Indonesian Elections Committee (Peti), was quoted by the Jakarta Post as saying.
The chaotic preparations for the 2009 legislative elections are said to be the most worrying problem in Indonesia's election history. Fearing possible failure in the elections, Muslim-based United Development Party (PPP) Chairman Suryadharma Ali said that if need be, the elections might well be postponed.
"Up to now, I still think that the elections must go ahead in accordance with the schedule made earlier," Ali said here on Saturday. But the elections might well be delayed if KPU openly says it is giving up or no longer able to solve the technical problems it is still facing," the PPP chairman said.
He said many packages of fixed voters' lists had not yet been evenly distributed to polling stations (TPS) throughout the country, including the many cases of fictitious voters.
Ali said that he feared the elections, if conducted in such a condition, would create distrust among voters, as it could cause suspicions that marks up had taken place due to the many cases of fictitious voters in the lists.
After all, such a condition would discourage voters to exercise their voting rights. According to political scientist Dr Alfitra Salam of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), about 55 percent of the 171 million registered voters might abstain from voting.
The number of abstainers could be lower than 55 percent, however, he said adding that he arrived at the figure based on his own estimate.
"Not all abstainers in the figure are pure abstainers. Some will abstain from voting because of technical or administrative problems," Alfitra said.
He said that 20 percent of the 171 million voters would abstain because they had no identification cards, 15 percent had no intention to vote, 10 percent would make mistakes in ticking the ballot papers and 10 percent others would be traveling for a long holiday.
In order to prevent voters from ignoring the elections, a number of interfaith leaders called on voters to make the April 9 elections a success.
They said that failure in the election would be a set back in the country's political life. Chairman of the Indonesian Churches Union (PGI) Andreas Yewangoe said to make the elections a success one should not abstain from voting.
Likewise, Chairman of the Indonesian second largest Muslim organization Muhammadiyah, Din Syamsuddin said that voters should be aware that election was an important national agenda for the continuation of the reform process.
Besides the legislative elections on April 9, a presidential elections would also be held on July 8, 2009.
In the legislative elections, some 11,215 legislative candidates are competing for 560 seats in the House of Representatives (DPR) in the national level and 1,109 for 132 seats in the Regional Representatives Council (DPD).
At the regional level, 112,000 people are competing for 1,998 provincial legislative council seats and an estimated 1.5 million others are battling for 15,750 seats on district/municipal legislative councils. ***1*** (A014/A/HAJM/B003) 2. 21:10. (T.A014/A/A014/B003) 04-04-2009 21:19:53 |
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