Jakarta – With numerous electoral disputes that arise from local elections across the country, the time is ripe for the government to set up special courts at the district level to speed up the settlements of electoral disputes.
Currently, all electoral disputes from places near and far are handled by the Constitutional Court in Jakarta.
"One way to deal with the electoral dispute is to establish a special court that handles only electoral disputes," Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro) executive director Hadar Gumay told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
He was commenting on the numerous electoral disputes that have occurred in local elections throughout 2011. Constitutional Court chief Mahfud MD disclosed on Wednesday that his office had received 392 cases of electoral disputes from a total of 440 local elections that were held last year.
Among the 392 cases, the Constitutional Court issued rulings for only 45 of them. "There are indications of fraud in almost all of those cases. But, many of them didn't meet the criteria to be processed further," Mahfud said at a national seminar on the evaluation into regional elections here on Wednesday.
The Constitutional Court disqualified four candidates from local elections last year. As an example, a mayoral candidate in Tebing Tinggi, North Sumatra, was disqualified because the candidate was still serving probation.
Some regions were forced to hold an election rerun because of poor organization, such as in the case of the election of North Sumatra's regency of Mandailing Natal, where the organizers wrote down an incorrect vote tally.
While in South Bengkulu regency, Bengkulu, the court ordered an election rerun so as to include some eligible candidates who were unfairly prevented by the local general election commission (KPUD) from running in the first election.
Meanwhile, Constitutional Court justice Maria Farida Indrati said some incumbent candidates often used programs such as the school operational cost subsidy, rice for the poor and religion-related social aid to increase their popularity, especially in the run up to the election.
In addition, Mahfud said the problems were found in all aspects of the elections, from technical aspects like registration and candidacy to budgeting as well as the professionalism and independency of its organizers.
Moreover, some of the problems have lead to mass violence among the grassroots of society, such as in Aceh and Papua. "The regional election has shifted from a celebration of democracy to a political phenomena plagued by problems," he added.
Also during Wednesday's seminar, National Police chief detective Comr. Gen. Sutarman explained how the police had been handling regional election crime.
"The police still rely on Criminal Code Procedures to investigate electoral crime, so its process is pretty much the same as with other crime," he said. "But we also have seen additional mechanisms based on reports of electoral violations from the General Election Supervisory Board."
He added that it was mainly the interpretation of the rules and regulations that caused problems in electoral dispute settlement.