Rumah Pemilu Indonesia Election Portal
During a plenary meeting session with the Special Committee for the new Elections Law Bill, the Election Monitoring Body (Bawaslu) asks the Government to make Election Monitoring Committees (Panwaslu) at the regency/municipality level permanent bodies as mandated in the Bill.
Bawaslu asserts that the status of Panwaslu as ad hoc bodies has hampered their performance in doing the job well, especially regarding electoral dispute resolution.
“We don’t want Panwaslu resolve electoral dispute as ad hoc bodies. We want them to be more permanent institutions,” says a member of Bawaslu, Nasrullah, in Jakarta (12/07).
A politician from the Golkar Party who is also a member of the Special Committee for the Elections Law Bill, Rambe Kamarul Zaman, agrees with Bawaslu’s proposal. Rambe says the current condition of Panwaslu is rather poor and they need to be upgraded into permanent institutions. However, according to Rambe, Bawaslu needs to improve the quality of the staffs.
“When I visited Panwaslu in local areas, I was sad to see the poor condition of Panwaslu. I promise them to upgrade their status into permanent institution, but they will have to improve the quality of their staffs,” Rambe says.
In the previous plenary meeting, several members of the Lower House of the Parliament (DPD) disagree with the idea to make Panwaslu as permanent institutions because Panwaslu has no clear mandate and it will only pose additional burden to the National Budget.
