The Election Supervisory Committee (Bawaslu) says that it has found indications of vote buying involving various political parties during the first two days of the 2014 legislative election campaign period.
However, Bawaslu chairman Muhammad declined to name the political parties concerned.
“Bawaslu has found indications of vote buying but we cannot yet publicize them. They are still being examined,” he said in Jakarta on Tuesday, as quoted by kompas.com.
According to Muhammad, the parties conducted the vote buying in a variety of ways, one of which was by distributing so-called transportation payments.
He said Bawaslu had its own mechanism to assess whether the amount of money distributed as transportation payments to campaign participants could be considered normal because in a campaign process, such a payments were needed.
“We cannot avoid those kinds of political costs because this is a campaign period in which such payments are really needed,” said Muhammad. He added that Bawaslu would assess whether the money could influence people in their voting decisions.
Vote buying is prohibited, according to the Law No. 8/2012 on elections. The General Elections Commission (KPU) can remove Regional Legislative Council (DPRD), House of Representatives (DPR) or Regional Representatives Council (DPD) candidates from final candidate lists and/or cancel decrees on their selection as members of the councils.
Muhammad said vote buying was among several election violations, including the involvement of children in campaign activities, detected during the legislative campaign period.
Source/Fuente: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/03/18/vote-buying-detected-durin...
