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Apr 3, 2009 Fraud threat clouds Indonesian polls By Patrick Guntensperger JAKARTA - There is a rising risk that Indonesia's next elected government will face an immediate legitimacy crisis if mounting complaints about manipulation of official voters' lists are challenged by losing parties and candidates. That contentious prospect threatens to make next week's legislative and July's presidential polls the rockiest of the country's decade-old democratic era. Recent revelations that 27% of the names on the official voters' list were fraudulent in the November 2008 gubernatorial elections in East Java province have cast a shadow over hopes for a smooth democratic transition at the polls. Police investigators in the pivotal province determined that of the 1.2 million names on the official voters' list, over 345,000 were underage, fictitious, dead or otherwise ineligible to cast ballots. Investigators have claimed that the scale and pattern of error could not be attributed to computer glitches or software inadequacies, as originally postulated by election officials, but were rather the result of systematic human intervention. Indonesia's Independent Election Supervisory Committee (KIPP) and the Indonesian Voters Committee (KPI) have also alleged high-level fraud and manipulation of lists for political purposes. The government has attempted to deflect those criticisms. Home Minister Mardianto has insisted that the East Java controversy was caused more by incompetence than any deliberate attempt to influence the election result. He however hedged by saying "the fixed list of eligible voters doesn't fall within the government's authority", and suggested instead that the list was the responsibility of the General Elections Commission (KPU). For its part, the KPU has said it is only a user of the voters' list and refused to release documents, open records or even speak to investigators looking into the alleged fraud. Despite the seriousness of the allegations, the national police in Jakarta have failed to upgrade the inquiry to a higher-level criminal investigation, which means probing officials lack the authority to compel compliance, subpoena records, summon witnesses or interrogate suspects in the case. They have rather had to rely on the voluntary cooperation of the very people being investigated. Even so, local police have pieced together a complex and extremely sensitive case by sifting in their capacity as ordinary citizens through reams of misfiled documents, missing records and government departments that lack accountability. In the absence of KPU cooperation, and in light of Jakarta's insistence that more evidence is needed before it will give the police authority to seek more evidence, the KIPP and KPI, as well as independent international election watchdogs, have been left to pursue the matter with a minimum of government support. KIPP secretary general Muchtar Sindong believes that high-level fraud was committed during the East Java gubernatorial elections, asserting that only upper echelon officials had the necessary access to manipulate the voters' list. That, he and others argue, could have huge implications for the legislative and presidential polls, where the democratic stakes will be national rather than local in scope. "I think the East Java gubernatorial election fraud was a pilot project to test their ability and they will bring this to full effect in the coming election," he was quoted saying in The Jakarta Post newspaper, without identifying the alleged culprits. No suspects have been named by investigators into the apparent electoral fraud. The silence has been influenced by the recent trend towards litigiousness among political parties and their high-ranking members. Lawsuits are routinely filed by anyone who feels the slightest bit offended by a statement or observation made publicly, and it is widely believed that cases in court are often decided in favor of the party or politician with the deepest pockets. Although gubernatorial candidates technically run as independents, the winner at the East Java polls, and apparent beneficiary of any electoral irregularities, was Dr H Soekarwo, who is believed to have ties to the heavyweight Golkar and the Democratic parties. His opponent, Khofifah Indarparawansa, has amid the fraud charges filed a lawsuit challenging the validity of the election. Electoral skepticism With similar questions swirling around the validity of the much larger voters' list for next week's legislative elections, the KPU continues to claim that the lists are accurate and complete. These claims, particularly when uttered in conjunction with the KPU's protestations that it is merely a "user of the list", however are being greeted with growing skepticism. Concerns about the elections have also risen from new regulations intended to streamline Indonesian politics by reducing the number of national political parties in parliament. Currently, 38 different parties are to contest the legislative polls. Parties will need to notch 2.5% of the popular vote for their winning candidates to actually take their seats in parliament. That means many voters will cast their ballots for candidates and parties that fail to reach the percentage threshold, leaving a significant percentage of the population unrepresented in the legislature. Preliminary polls suggest that the country's three main parties - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democrat Party, Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle and the military-linked Golkar - will garner around 50% of the vote. That leaves the other 35 parties to scramble for the remaining half of the national electorate. Because only eight or nine parties are expected to meet the 2.5% threshold, the incentive for fraud is high. Added to the cut and thrust are growing questions about the KPU's capability to efficiently deliver ballots to polling stations, confusion over regulations governing improperly marked ballots, and a history of graft in the awarding of contracts for election logistical support. Some political analysts predict a flurry of lawsuits and demands for a nationwide recount, or even revote, to be lodged by losing legislative candidates in protest against invalid voters' lists. With a precedent for government inaction set at the East Java gubernatorial polls, others believe the situation could devolve towards full-blown violence if the state is perceived to be directly involved or deliberately covering up election fraud. Northwestern University political science professor and renowned Indonesia expert Jeffrey Winters said at a recent press event in Jakarta that it is possible voter disenchantment will erupt into widespread violence after the legislative polls. To back up that claim, he quoted a senior Golkar party official who recently predicted outbreaks of violence from the voting public in response to claims the democratic process had been manipulated. With the government reluctant to address the problem and the relevant officials refusing to accept accountability for the fraud allegations raised at the East Java polls, Indonesia's next installed government could in the eyes of voters lack democratic legitimacy. That threat augurs ill for a country that has recently won widespread praise for its move towards democracy, but clearly still has a long way to go to consolidate those gains. Patrick Guntensperger is a Jakarta-based freelance journalist and political and social commentator. He lectures in journalism and communications at several universities and is a consultant in communications and corporate social responsibility. He may be reached at pguntensper...@yahoo.ca (Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing. )
