Jakarta – The gubernatorial candidates could be pulling out all the stops by using dirty tricks such as money politics, vote-swaying through bureaucratic means and manipulating reports of campaign funding ahead of the Sept. 20 runoff, said Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) on Friday.
ICW researcher Ade Irawan said that the dirty tricks would be more prevalent than in the first round as the runoff was the final battle for both candidates – incumbent Governor Fauzi Bowo and Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, who bested four other candidates at the July's election.
"We've found many cases where teachers have been summoned by the principals and asked who they will vote for," he said, adding that such a practice was more prevalent after the first round without disclosing the schools' names. "From what I can remember, the schools are mostly located in North and Central Jakarta."
Ade reported the findings on Friday during a discussion, which also featured CSIS's political and international department head Philips J. Vermonte and Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) commissioner Adnan Pandupraja as speakers, on unethical practices ahead of the runoff at ICW's office in Kalibata, South Jakarta.
Ade said that such practices also happened at the level of subdistricts, where subdistrict heads would intimidate residents to vote for a certain candidate when they wanted to apply for relief letters (SKTM) and government-funded health insurance Jamkesmas cards.
Besides, campaign funds were prone to violations, such as the cases where individuals or firms with dubious identities gave money to the candidates, he said.
In the first round, ICW found that candidates supported by political parties received vast amounts of money from such "ghost donors". Based on the findings, Ade warned that there could be more cases where companies with interest in the outcome of the election poured their money into a candidate's coffers.
"Not to mention that candidates don't have to submit campaign funding records to the Jakarta branch of the General Elections Commission [KPU Jakarta] at the runoff," he said.
KPU Jakarta member Suhartono said that while the law did not require the candidates to reveal their campaign funds for the runoff, they had agreed to do so voluntarily. The commission, however, will not audit the reports as the cost of public auditors was not included in its budget, according to Suhartono.
"The budget was made based on the law, which doesn't require candidates to report funding. Therefore, we won't hire public auditors, unlike the first round," he said.
"Instead, we'll facilitate open debate between the candidates and the public through the media, so that the public can assess the reports and query them."
Suhartono said that the commission had not decided when the candidates should submit the reports.
Besides warning the public of potential violations, Ade also criticized the performance of the Jakarta branch of the Elections Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu Jakarta).
He said that Panwaslu Jakarta failed to follow up on ICW's report on first round campaign fund violations because the committee was too stern on technical issues such as deadlines.
Panwaslu Jakarta chairman Ramdansyah, meanwhile, said that it was the committee's duty to uphold the law, which contained technical guidelines for violations during election.
"ICW only reported their finding to us once, and we already acted upon them by forwarding the report to KPU Jakarta," he said. (han)