Abdul Khalik, Jakarta – More than 36 million voting-age citizens might be staying at home for the 2009 legislative election, as a recent survey shows their names are not included in the official preliminary list of eligible voters (DPS).
The survey was jointly conducted by the Institute of Research, Education and Information of Social and Economic Affairs (LP3ES) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) from Aug. 7 to 10, involving 1,537 respondents in all 33 provinces of Indonesia.
It found 20.8 percent of respondents were not registered.
"If the General Elections Commission (KPU) estimates there will be 174 million people eligible to vote in 2009, this means that more than 36 million people won't be able to exercise their voting rights," NDI election program manager Anastasia Soeryadinata told the press when launching the findings Wednesday.
The DPS, recently released by election bodies, is supposed to be the updated version of voter lists submitted by the Home Ministry to the KPU in April this year. Under regulations, the KPU had three months to update the list after receiving it.
All local election bodies should have then announced the updated preliminary lists at the village or subdistrict levels on Aug. 8, leaving eligible voters with 10 days to verify their names on the roster.
However, the survey revealed that over 92 percent of respondents were unaware that they had to check their names on the lists, and that fewer knew about the period for name checking.
The survey has raised fears among poll monitors that the DPS remains unchanged and that millions of unregistered citizens have lost their chance to vote.
The survey said only 3.4 percent of respondents said they had checked their names on the roster.
"It is ironic, because some 87 percent of unregistered respondents said they would vote while over 93 percent (of registered and unregistered respondents) expressed the same intention," Fajar Nursahid of the LP3ES said.
Executive director of the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro) Hadar N. Gumay, who attended the press briefing, slammed the KPU for "doing almost nothing" to increase people's awareness of the election.
"This survey should be a warning to us that the upcoming election will be much worse than the 2004 election. The KPU can't hide behind the government's unpunctuality in disbursing election funds," he said.
"The KPU should push for it (the disbursement) and if the government continues not to disburse the money, they should boycott the election process and return the mandate as it is impossible to work without money," he added.
Hadar warned that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono would damage his image if his administration failed to conduct a credible election.
The NDI, LP3ES and Cetro urged the KPU to extend the voter registration period for a month and postpone announcing the final list of eligible voters (DPT) from October to November to give people more time to register.
"We believe an extended registration period will not affect the election process. By my calculations, five months is more than enough time to prepare the election logistics materials," Anastasia said.
The KPU is scheduled to close voter registration on Aug. 27 and release the DPT in October this year.