Workers sort and fold ballot papers for 2024 presidential election at the Bogor Elections Commission warehouse in West Java on Jan 15, 2024. - Antara
JAKARTA: With less than a month left before the general election, election organisers have been busy preparing the logistics for the country’s biggest general election yet, while the candidates have spared no effort on the campaign trail to win the hearts of some 204 million registered voters.
On Feb. 14, Indonesia will hold one of the world’s largest single-day simultaneous elections, combining the presidential election and elections to elect lawmakers, senators and councillors at the regional level.
For the nation’s 1.7 million overseas voters, organisers will hold balloting from Feb 5-14 and even earlier by post.
Presidential candidates Anies Baswedan, Prabowo Subianto and Ganjar Pranowo have diligently toured the nation to win the support of voters since the official election campaign period opened in late November last year.
The faces of tens of thousands of legislative candidates on election campaign banners have also been plastered on every surface imaginable around the country, frequently on public facilities like sidewalks and overpasses.
But beneath the fanfare of campaigns and the proliferation of garish banners, the General Elections Commission (KPU) has been busy finalising logistics preparations for the elections, which it claims are close to completion.
The election body’s work includes the production and distribution of ballot boxes, voting booths, vials of ink and seals, as well as the printing and delivery of registration and ballot papers for the presidential and legislative elections.
Election organisers in the regions have also enlisted the help of tens of thousands of volunteers to manually fold the ballot papers for use in next month’s polls. A total of Rp 71.2 trillion (US$4.56 billion) from the state coffers has been spent on the election, which the Finance Ministry has disbursed to the relevant bodies since 2022.
Logistics, manpower KPU chair Hasyim Asy’ari said during a field trip to a regional branch office in Bali last week that the ballot papers were currently being distributed, with the last deliveries slated to be completed by Monday.
Earlier this month, Hasyim called on the commission’s rank and file to conduct more on-field supervision of the distribution of polling materials.
“I ask that all our colleagues are deployed to the regions to closely monitor [distribution] and get serious about logistics preparedness,” he told a national coordinating meeting on Jan 7.
Besides logistics, the KPU has had to pay special attention to human resource gaps, especially poll administrators (KPPS). It needs 5.7 million volunteers to oversee some 820,000 polling stations across the country. Learning from past experience, particularly the 2019 elections, during which hundreds of local poll organisers died of exhaustion, the KPU has introduced stricter health requirements and an upper age limit, while refocusing its volunteer recruitment strategy to target younger people.
“We must ensure that the administrators are in prime condition to work,” Hasyim said.
“Both the election officials and the poll administrators must maintain [their health] throughout the entire canvassing process.”
Roughly 50 days into the campaigning season, Gerindra Party chairman Prabowo, who is running with President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo’s eldest son Gibran Rakabuming Raka, remains the man to beat in next month’s poll.
His ambition of securing a single-round victory, however, looks likely to be foiled, as opinion polls released last month found his electability to fall short of 50 per cent. This leaves his rivals Anies and Ganjar locked in a tight race to compete for second place in a likely run-off vote.
Prabowo has in recent days ramped up his campaign, a move experts see as an effort to counter his perceived underwhelming performance in the third election debate, which saw him cornered by Ganjar and Anies on topics that should have been the Defence Minister’s strong suit.
Indonesians, however, still have two more rounds of televised debates to look forward to, which will see the presidential candidates and their running mates take to the stage once more on Jan 21 and Feb 4, respectively.
Furthermore, the candidates and their respective teams will head into the streets for mass rallies beginning on Jan 21, signalling the final stages of campaigning.
Just weeks out from polling day, the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) said it had found numerous cases of faulty voting materials across hundreds of cities and regencies since distribution began last September.
Bawaslu also took note of outstanding issues regarding the distribution of materials for voters abroad, after dozens of Overseas Election Committees (PPLN) complained about receiving the incorrect number of ballot papers. By the 50th day of campaigning, all three presidential election tickets and dozens of legislative candidates had faced allegations of campaign rule violations.
Anies’ campaign team was found to have violated campaign rules by arranging a weekday event at a campus in Bengkulu in December and displaying campaign banners during the event.
Gibran was declared by Bawaslu’s Central Jakarta office earlier this month to have violated a Jakarta regulation for distributing free milk during a Car-Free Day event.
The Ganjar-Mahfud MD ticket, meanwhile, has been reported to the election watchdog for a similar infraction in Surakarta, Central Java, where his volunteer supporters allegedly distributed free mobile phone credits.
Public suspicions of illegal campaign funds have also gained traction after the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK) announced last week that it had discovered suspicious money flows, including from overseas, into the bank accounts of parties and politicians.
A suspected data breach of the national voter roll in late November has also raised concerns about the vulnerability of the KPU’s digital security system. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
