Indonesia's peaceful poll: How they did
it By Phar Kim Beng
The
recent elections in Indonesia are showing that the
country's opaque ways of doing things are progressively
being counter-checked. Helped by a well-coordinated
chain of accountability networks focused on bettering
Indonesia's electoral performance, the country's
political machinery has been under severe scrutiny for
the past year.
Since polling first began, an
army of election observers and volunteers have played a
decisive role in ensuring relatively clean legislative
and presidential elections in Indonesia. In the
legislative election in April, the Indonesian People's
Network for Voter Education (JPPR) alone deployed some
100,000 observers to detect any irregularity at the
581,000 polling stations across the country's 32
provinces. JPPR observers were deployed in 351 districts
and 2,020 subdistricts, including such hot spots as
Aceh, Papua and Poso in Central Sulawesi.
As if
that were not enough, another local election watchdog,
the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro) deployed more
than 15,000 observers to 11 of the country's 32
provinces during and after election day. Cetro's deputy
director Hadar N Gumay said that of that number, 7,000
observers were assigned on election day, while another
8,000 monitored the tallying of the votes at the poll
committees.
During the presidential election
runoff on September 20, the same monitoring exercises
were mobilized to ensure a fair election.
But
this attention was not purely confined to the election
process. The spotlight also was turned on the General
Elections Commission (KPU) to a considerable degree.
A month prior to the presidential runoff, the
Jakarta Post reported that a coalition of
non-governmental organizations had filed a complaint
with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) over
the procurement of materials by the KPU. The coalition,
consisting of the Independent Committee for Election
Monitoring, the Indonesian Forum for Budget
Transparency, the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute, Indonesia
Procurement Watch and the Indonesian Forum for
Parliamentary Concern, accused the KPU of involvement in
a markup over the acquisition of election materials that
inflicted some US$41.6 million (Rp375 billion) in losses
on the state, according to the Post. This was an
increase of 616% from the original budget assigned to
KPU.
"Based on our findings and analysis, there
were large markups in budget expenditure for the
legislative election. All KPU members and officials at
the commission's secretariat general were involved,"
coalition spokesman Hermawanto was quoted by the Jakarta
Post as having said.
In its report, the
coalition alleged that the KPU had spent more than it
should have by raising the number of reserve ballots,
ballot boxes and polling booths.
The coalition
gave the KPK three weeks to take follow-up action on its
report. It never did. But the controversy was strong
enough that the KPU finally had to explain its
procurement decisions to the electoral watchdog network
to clear the air.
The first beneficiary of this
process of monitoring, as results have since shown, has
clearly been Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. With most of the
votes counted, Yudhoyono, who has received 61% of the
total votes so far, has defied Indonesia's entrenched
political parties and incumbent President Megawati
Sukarnoputri's efforts to defeat him.
Although
there has been much reporting by foreign monitoring
bodies throughout the Indonesian legislative and
presidential elections this year, the foreign election
watchdogs accredited by the central KPU mainly consisted
of nine bodies: the European Union Electoral Observation
Mission; the National Democratic Institute for
International Affairs; the International Foundation for
Electoral Systems; the Asia Foundation; the Carter
Center; the Australia Electoral Commission; the Asian
Network for Free Elections; the International Republican
Institute; and the Taiwan Association for Human Rights.
Among those monitoring the elections were US
Ambassador to Indonesia Ralph L Boyce, former US
president Jimmy Carter and former Thai prime minister
Chuan Leekpai. Peter Eigen, head of Berlin-based
Transparency International, also played a role in
encouraging Transparency International in Indonesia to
monitor the election from the side.
But aside
from these foreign groups, the act of "watching
Indonesia" was mainly a collective responsibility
carried out by Indonesians. The total number of
observers from foreign monitoring bodies never exceeded
600.
Still, all is not necessarily well with
Indonesian democracy. Political scientists in Indonesia
and abroad have pointed out that various violations by
candidates and particularly election officials took
place during the campaign period. According to the
Independent Election Monitoring Committee, 80% of
election violations were committed by KPU officials.
The committee alleged that officials punctured
some 8,000 ballots in favor of Yudhoyono and his running
mate Jusuf Kalla before the election. In Timika, Papua,
authorities found poll officials had pierced 3,200
ballot papers for the Susilo-Kalla pair.
Nevertheless, Indonesia conducted the direct
presidential election orderly and peacefully, without
disruption to voter access. Many observers also
acknowledged significant improvements in the way the
elections were administered.
But neither local
nor international electoral watchdogs alone can take
credit for the smooth process of the polls. The police
and civilian guards played an important role too.
To prevent any incidents, 190,000 police
officers were deployed, mostly in known trouble spots
such as Central Sulawesi, Ambon, Papua and Aceh. Before
the voting, Indonesian Police Chief Dai Bachtiar
affirmed: "The security umbrella will be enforced not
only on polling day, but also right up until the results
and appointment of the new president."
According
to the police chief, about 38,000 Indonesian troops were
earmarked assist the police in securing the election as
a standby measure, while another 1.2 million civilian
guards were to help police secure polling stations to
ensure the election and post-election processes were
trouble-free.
So, despite the attendant (minor)
imperfections in the Indonesian elections, it is clear
that Indonesian democracy - at least of the electoral
kind - is on a roll. Just how Indonesia progresses
depends hugely on its ability to use the same amount of
energy and dedication shown in monitoring the elections
to eradicate corruption.
Phar Kim Beng
is a regular contributor to Asia Times Online. He is
currently on a Sumitomo Foundation fellowship, studying
the state of Japanese social sciences. He was trained in
international relations and strategic studies, first at
Cambridge University, later Fletcher School and Harvard
University.
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