Friday, May 19, 2017 – A total of 2,441 respondents (complained parties) received various decisions/and sanctions due to indications of violations of election organizer ethics during the 2012-2017 period. Of this number, the Election Organizer Honorary Council (DKPP) gave warning sanctions to 18 percent of respondents and 11 percent of respondents received permanent dismissal sanctions. These figures indicate that efforts to realize elections with integrity are still far from expectations. The DKPP as an ethics court is proving its role in enforcing the ethics of election organizers with integrity. This was conveyed by Dr. Aditya Perdana (Executive Director of the Center for Political Studies, FISIP UI) in a Public Seminar entitled Encouraging Ethical Independence of Election Organizers: Reflection on the Role of the DKPP for the 2012-2017 Period, today, Friday, May 19, 2017 at the FISIP UI Depok Campus.
As a respondent, Dr. Valina Singka Subekti (member of the Indonesian Elections Supervisory Board) stated that the independence aspect of election organizers is indeed a point of concern when organizations and members (individuals) of election organizers must prove their neutrality and impartiality in the election process. Empirically, many violations have been found in the field. However, Valina also considered that in the DKPP trial process it was revealed that in violations of independence, the modus operandi that usually occurs is a neat collaboration between election participants (political parties and candidates) with organizers and investors of election participants to win a particular candidate.
Another member of the Indonesian Elections Supervisory Board (DKPP), Endang Wihdaningtyas, revealed that the defendants who received sanctions were individuals, but they worked collegially within an election organizing organization. The PUSKAPOL FISIP UI research team, represented by Ikhsan Darmawan, stated that the problem with election organizers who violated the principles of election organizers was that many of the defendants came from members of the Regency/City Election Commission (KPUD). According to Valina, it is at the regency/city level that improvements in election organization should be made, such as the commissioner recruitment system and also the development of organizing organizations at the regency/city level and below, must be intensively carried out.
This seminar is a dissemination of the research results of PUSKAPOL FISIP UI which found several interesting things in analyzing the DKPP decisions for the 2012-2017 period, including: (1) violations of the independence principle are the most prominent and important among other election organizer principles; (2) there are three regions, namely Papua, North Sumatra and Southeast Sulawesi which have the most respondents among other provinces; (3) respondents who received the most violations came from the Regency/City KPUD commissioners; (4) the most important election actors, namely participants (candidates) and political parties, are not the object of the case in the election organizer violation trials, but their role is very significant in influencing the organizers to commit violations and abuse the authority held by the organizers. For this reason, PUSKAPOL FISIP UI recommends that there be consideration in including election participants as the object of the case in the election organizer violation trials. In addition, PUSKAPOL FISIP UI also recommends the existence of standards/criteria in the form of a range of variations in the imposition of sanctions from the lightest to the most severe. So that the interested parties in DKPP hearings can understand the considerations for issuing decisions/sanctions.
