Markus Junianto Sihaloho – The government has been told to improve the management of voter lists for the 2014 general elections if it hopes to avoid a repeat of the controversy that plagued the 2009 polls.

Inaccurate voter lists and people being listed multiple times proved a major headache for the organizers of the 2009 elections, with protests and complaints dogging the process almost up to voting day.

Fernita Darwis, from the Movement for the Empowerment of the Women's Voice (GPSP), said on Wednesday that the problems in 2009 stemmed from the failure of the 2008 Elections Law to clearly regulate the process for compiling the lists.

She said the lists of potential voters were drawn up by the Home Affairs Ministry and then submitted to the General Elections Commission (KPU), which from the beginning complained that they were incomplete.

"So this issue of the voter lists needs to be one of the main issues that gets serious attention from the government and legislators in the drafting of a new elections bill," she said.

She suggested the bill include provisions for an independent body to manage the lists. "The new bill must also provide a legal avenue of redress for citizens who are omitted from the lists."

Fernita, who served as a liaison officer for the United Development Party (PPP) on the KPU during the last elections, was speaking at the launch of her book, "Speculative Election: Revealing the Hidden Facts of the 2009 Election."

The book offers a blow by blow look at the elections, including the protests over alleged polling violations and "intrigues between and among political parties."

Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi, who spoke at the launch, said the government and legislators were intensifying discussions of the elections bill.

He said Indonesia was still in the transitional phase toward becoming a full-fledged democracy, so there was much scope for improving the electoral system. "I hope any suggestions raised by this book can be used as a reference in the drafting of the bill."

Nurhidayat Sardini, former chairman of the Elections Supervisory Board (Bawaslu), said the book highlighted just how poorly organized the 2009 elections had been. "The electoral system must be reformed," he said.

Suryadharma Ali, the PPP chairman, said the 2014 polls would be more dynamic because of greater competition among parties. He warned, however, against using the heightened competition as justification for including "dirty tricks" into the elections bill.

"We hope that come 2014, there will be no more dirty tricks in use," he said, but declined to elaborate on what these tricks were.