Irawaty Wardany – The fanfare of legislative and presidential inauguration ceremonies have already passed, but there remain many flaws in the electoral system and related laws, detailed a report released by Indonesia Corruption Watch on Wednesday.

"There are many loopholes in the 2007 law on the implementation of general elections, the 2008 law on legislative elections and the 2008 presidential law," ICW researcher Ibrahim Zuhdhi Fahmy Badoh told a conference on the evaluation.

"The loopholes are related to limitations of donations, administration and reporting of campaign funds, public access to documents related to campaign funds and the regulation of donations," he said.

"Of these loopholes, even an audit report cannot be used as a tool to verify campaign fund reports. So what can be used to verify the reports?"

He also criticized the lack of coordination between the General Elections Commission (KPU) and the Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu).

Bawaslu member Wahidah Suaib admitted the lack of coordination between the two institutions saying that even after the campaign audit result was issued, the KPU had not sent a copy to the Bawaslu.

"AC Nielsen reported that the advertising expenses of a political party were much higher than what was reported to the KPU," she said. Unfortunately, when the body tried to report the case to the police, it said they could not follow it up as the deadline had already passed.

"This is because the KPU does not have a responsive regulation on this matter despite the importance of transparent campaign funds," Wahidah said.

KPU commissioner Syamsul Bahri said that even inside the KPU it was difficult to get access to campaign fund information.

Executive director of the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro) Hadar N. Gumay even suspected the incumbent officials had benefited from unclear regulations about the limitations of advertisements paid by the state budget.

"I think that's why the incumbent succeeded in gaining the people's vote because he and his officials ran many advertisements claiming their success in implementing their programs," he said.

Topo Santoso, a criminal expert from the University of Indonesia said the report could potentially disqualify elected candidates and create instability in the country.