Bawaslu told to follow up on electoral violations

Jakarta, NU Online
Poll watchdogs recommended Thursday that all electoral frauds on the July 8 presidential election, as stipulated in the Constitutional Court’s verdict, should be followed up to ensure better elections in the future.

Both the Indonesian Voters Committee coordinator, Jeirry Sumampouw, and the Center for Electoral Reforms (Cetro), executive director,  Hadar Gumay, said resolving electoral frauds could upgrade the legitimacy of the election and the winning pair of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono-Boediono.<>

“No matter how small the electoral frauds, it must be resolved to prevent such cases happening again in coming elections,” Jeirry told The Jakarta Post.

“There must be sanctions taken against the General Elections Commission [KPU] regarding electoral violations.”

He said the Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) could propose the establishment of a honorary council to follow up the court’s ruling on the violations.

He added that the council could report the criminal cases to the police.

“The legal process against the frauds is important even though it would not have any impact on the final result of the election.”

The Constitutional Court on Wednesday issued a verdict dismissing allegations of electoral fraud filed by losing candidates, thus securing Yudhoyono’s re-election.

The court dismissed complaints filed by presidential hopefuls Megawati Soekarnoputri and Jusuf Kalla over alleged frauds at the presidential election.

The court said alleged criminal violations and other violations in election could still be investigated but would not alter the election’s final result.

The court also admitted that the KPU did commit various procedural faults but they were not structured, systematic or massive.

Kalla’s team filed a lawsuit calling for the election to be annulled after alleging that there were 47 million errors on electoral roll including the duplicate names.

Kalla’s team also said a decision to close 69,000 polling stations had prevented 34.5 million people from voting.

Meanwhile, Megawati’s team alleged 28 million votes had been miscounted for a variety of reasons and incorrectly given to President Yudhoyono.

The court said no proof had been presented to support the allegations.

It suggested more professional organization in the future, both in drafting of laws and in carrying out the commission’s duties.

Meanwhile, Hadar also urged the Bawaslu to propose the establishment of a honorary council as it was allowed under the 2007 law on election.

“Though it would not impact result of election, but it would improve quality of election,” he told the Post over the phone.

Hadar said President Yudhoyono and the House of Representative could also take stern action to dismiss the KPU members for their poor performance in preparing the election.

“They have the power to do so.”

Yudhoyono won 60.80 percent of the votes followed by Megawati in distant second with 26.79 percent. Kalla received only 12.41 percent. (jp/dar)