ISNU warns of possible electoral fraud

Sukoharjo, NU Online
Chairman of the Honorary Board of Nahdlatul Ulama Scholars Association (ISNU) Mahfud MD said the process of this year's legislative elections was far more democratic than the New Order era. However, he warned possible electoral fraud potential which is not less dangerous than the politics of money.<>

"The election is a right of people and political actors in charge, not the state. That's why it should be repaired and monitored," he explained during a briefing for candidates here on Sunday (6/4).

Mahfud added there had still been many fraud potentials that occurred in the election, pointing out that people who did not arrive at polling stations could be exploited by their headman and Polling Station Working Committees (KPPS) members.

"I found this when I was on duty in the Constitutional Court (MK). A region with no members of the Regional House of Representatives, but at the level of the House of Representatives it could get the seat. The case was found in East Java," said the former Constitutional Court chief justice).

He explained that in order to prevent and minimize all forms of violations of this election, election observers and the press should be at the forefront as monitoring and supervisory elements.

As reported,  Indonesians cast their votes in parliamentary elections held simultaneously across the nation, which is the biggest democracy after India and the United States, on Wednesday. 

Some 185.8 million voters spread across thousands of islands that stretch some 4,800 km from east to west, are registered to vote in the largest and most complicated single-day poll in the world. 

There are more than 545 thousand polling stations, which open at 7am and close at 1pm, across the worlds largest archipelago country.

This year, 15 political parties, of which 12 are national and three are local, are participating in the elections.

In the parliamentary elections, some 6,607 candidates were contesting for 560 seats in the House of Representatives (DPR). In addition, there will be elections to 132 seats of the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) at the national level, 2,112 of the provincial parliamentary (DPRD I) seats and 16,895 seats for the district/municipality-level legislative assemblies (DPRD II). 

Results are due on May 7 and 9.

Indonesia holds its national general elections comprising the parliamentary elections on April 9 and then the presidential election on July 9, with a run-off election in September if no presidential candidate gets more than 50 per cent of the vote.

Editing by Sudarto Murtaufiq