Political parties have disputed the General Elections Commission’s (KPU) decision to rush the legislative election vote count process by limiting the right to challenge results in the regions.
The controversial move, they said, could jeopardize the legitimacy of the legislative election.
Since Monday, the KPU has limited the opportunity for political parties to file complains on the vote count data.
Previously, there were no such limitations, prompting political parties to argue about alleged vote manipulation and other mismatched data, which in turn slowed the national process so that the KPU had only been able to wrap up the vote tally in 13 provinces.
Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician Agustina Tio said on Tuesday that the limitation would cause many unsolved problems.
“If there are still disputes [regarding the vote tally], but acceptance on the result is forced, then of course it’s not good,” she told The Jakarta Post. “Especially if the reason is only because of the May 9 deadline.”
May 9 is the deadline of both the legislative vote tally as well as the announcement of the result.
The legislative vote count was initially scheduled to be finished on May 6, only to be postponed to May 9 as it took longer than expected for the KPU to finish the count amid a barrage of complaints from political parties relating to allegations of vote manipulation and administrative errors.
“Seeing the dynamic of this forum [vote count plenary hearings] and the fact there are provinces that haven’t presented their vote count results, we have decided that the vote count process can be conducted until May 9,” KPU commissioner Ida Budhiati said on Tuesday.
Agustina said it was unwise for the KPU to use the tight deadline as a reason to limit feedback opportunities.
“There are two options, to meet the deadline or to have a vote tally process that is legitimate,” she said. “If we meet the deadline while forcing [the current data] to be the official result, then we will leave many problems. If we’re talking about having a legitimate vote count, there shouldn’t be such limitations.”
Therefore, it would be better for the KPU to miss the deadline and risk itself being punished by the Election Organizers Ethics Council (DKPP) for violating the Election Law.
“If we’re talking about the law that says the KPU has to announce the result within 30 days [from election day], then look at the case of the final voter list [DPT],” she said. “The announcement of the DPT also passed the deadline, but it did not cause any problems.”
NasDem Party election team head Ferry Mursyidan Baldan said there was no need for vote count hearings, if in the end the KPU declared the vote count result without accommodating the political parties’ complaints.
KPU commissioner Hadar Nafis Gumay said on Tuesday it was impossible for the KPU to handle all complaints, as doing so would hamper the process.
“In the KPU’s regulation and the law, in the count, any protests should not hinder the process,” he told the Jakarta Post.
Source/Fuente: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/05/07/parties-blast-kpu-limiting...
