Robert Go, Jakarta – With just 23 days to go, Indonesia faces critical hurdles that could impede a smooth parliamentary election next month, officials and observers said.
Any last-minute rush to complete poll preparations, they warned, could increase the possibility of honest errors occurring, or even the chances for manipulation of results.
Sources at the electoral commission KPU said vendors contracted to do the job had printed only about 40 per cent of the required 660 million ballot papers.
These papers were supposed to be delivered to polling centres yesterday, but the KPU has pushed back this deadline to March 28, just a week before polling day itself.
It is a similar story for ballot boxes, some 2.5 million of which need to be distributed to more than 585,000 polling stations nationwide.
Regional officials said they had started receiving aluminium ballot boxes from firms hired by the KPU to make them, but several said there would be a shortfall.
Another point of concern, studies done by government and private research groups show, is that more than 60 per cent of would-be voters still did not know how the process will work on April 5.
Mr Alan Wall of the International Foundation for Election Systems said yesterday that April 5 would be "the biggest, most complex, single-day election that anyone has ever tried to hold".
But observers said things could still fall into place in time for poll day.
For ballot boxes, four of which will be needed at each poll station, KPU branch offices could order local suppliers to construct wooden ones within a matter of days. The printing and distribution processes for ballot papers, said Ms Smita Notosusanto of the Centre for Electoral Reform, could be decentralised. "There is still time to do this," she said.
The military has also said it will help distribute ballot papers to poll stations.
On voter education, an international consultant working on these elections said: "There is a limited amount of money for voters' education. Spending on this will be concentrated nearer to the actual polling day." A KPU source said the commission would spend US$10 million from next week on TV advertisements to show Indonesians how they can vote.
Foreign donors, the source said, have contributed more than US$18 million for this purpose too and the bulk of that cash would also be used in the next three weeks.
However, there were still concerns that a beat-the-deadline rush could leave the poll process open to tampering and other problems.
Not everybody is happy with the military's potential involvement in distributing ballot papers. Ms Smita said: "We should not trust the military to deliver ballot papers. I don't think they are a neutral party."