2024 Election’s Problems Comes from the Election Organizers

The 2024 Election is considered to have many problems that actually come from the election organizers, making the election oversight process difficult to carry out. As a result, many policies have regressed, causing the election process to not proceed democratically. The issue of the independence of the election organizers is considered to be the root cause of the problems in the 2024 Election.

“In simple terms, election organizers cheat starting from the political party selection process. This is massive engineering, resulting in our elections having many problems,” said Hadar Nafis Gumay, the Director of the Network for Democracy and Electoral Integrity (Netgrit), during the launch of Catatan Awal Tahun [the Year-Opening Notes] (Cawahu) Perkumpulan untuk Pemilu dan Demokrasi [the Association for Elections and Democracy] (Perludem) in Tebet, South Jakarta, on January 14th.

With numerous notes of fraud, Hadar encourages the entire community to safeguard voters’ voices through monitoring platforms provided by civil society. This can be done by campaigning on social media, including photos of Form C1 (record of the implementation of the voting and vote counting at the polling station). If this movement is carried out simultaneously, he believes the potential for vote manipulation can be minimized.

“So, just let it be, why not? If they are not tired of being shouted at and show the data collectively, I believe it can be done for the improvement of the election,” he added.

Perludem’s Program Manager, Fadli Ramadhanil, sees signs of unprofessionalism and lack of independence in the General Election Commission (KPU) since the early stages of the election process. In many regions, the political party verification process has revealed many parties that do not meet the requirements but are still approved, and this fraud is said to involve KPU institutions from the central to the regional levels.

A serious problem with the KPU is also evident in its non-compliance with regulations and court decisions. This can be seen in how the KPU handles the decisions of the Constitutional Court (MK) regarding legislative candidates (caleg) who are former convicts, the age requirements for presidential and vice-presidential candidates, and the MK’s decision on the minimum representation of women candidates in each electoral district.

“It has even been reported ethically to the Election Organizers Honorary Council (Dewan Kehormatan Penyelenggara Pemilihan Umum or DKPP), but it turns out DKPP is not the solution but part of the problem,” explained Fadli.

Fadli assessed that the credibility of DKPP also needs to be questioned because many decisions issued are unable to maintain the ethical dignity of election organizers. He saw that DKPP cannot restore public trust in election organizers, even though in the midst of the problematic election organizers, the role of the ethics council is crucial.

“Now, in the midst of that, we also face a very weak Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu). Even though, if you look at the legal framework, it is more than sufficient, but election violations that we can see have almost no adequate response from Bawaslu,” he said. []

Translated by Catherine Natalia