Jakarta – Recent research conducted by The Habibie Center has revealed that violence has occurred during direct regional administrative elections in most provinces and regencies in nine areas across the country surveyed by the organization.
The research analyzed data of incidents of violence during regional administrative elections in the period between June 2005 and April this year, in nine areas comprising eight provinces: Aceh; West Kalimantan; Maluku; North Maluku; Central Sulawesi; Papua; West Papua; East Nusa Tenggara; and the Greater Jakarta metropolitan area consisting of Jakarta; Bogor; Depok; Tangerang and Bekasi (Jabodetabek).
The analysis was conducted by a number of researchers together with The Habibie Center. They obtained the data from the National Violence Monitoring System (SNPK), which was launched by the Office of the Coordinating People's Welfare Minister last year.
The team found that violence during regional administrative elections occurred in 104 locations, or 73 percent of the total 143 locations in 11 provinces and 132 regencies. From the total 104 places, there were 585 incidents of violence resulting in at least one person being killed in 6 percent of the places, one person injured in 58 percent of the places, and buildings damaged or destroyed in 65 percent of the places.
Sopar Peranto, one of the researchers, said late last week that the total 585 incidents had resulted in the deaths of 47 people, injuries to 510 people, and 416 damaged buildings. He added, however, that most of the incidents saw low-scale violence, such as destroying political parties' campaign materials, followed by persecution, destructive demonstrations and clashes between supporters of rival candidates.
"These low-scale incidents of violence took place across all the areas, but the incidents resulting in death or serious injury mostly occurred in conflict areas, such as Papua and Aceh," he said.
The team also found that 71 percent of the incidents were perpetrated by political parties' supporters, while 15 percent were caused by clashes between local government and political parties' supporters.
The most recent violence was a riot that occurred in Palopo, South Sulawesi, right after the Regional General Elections Commission (KPUD) had announced the winner of the election. Supporters of the runner-up party burned down local offices belonging to the Golkar Party; the Palopo mayor; the transportation agency; the Election Supervisory Committee (Bawaslu); and the Palopo Pos daily.
The incident sparked a swift response from Home Minister Gamawan Fauzi, who publicly stated that he would recommend the government employ the former indirect system if violence continued to rage during or after elections.
Senior researcher at The Habibie Center, Indria Samego, said that a large number of incidents occurring during elections should not be deemed as a fault of the direct electoral system, however, but rather as a lack of awareness among the people who caused trouble. "It is clear that the core of the problem is not the system, but the lack of knowledge among the public, political parties and government officials. If we return to the old system, our democracy will take a step backward," he said.
The research team found that security officers intervened in only 11 percent of the total 585 cases, while 78 percent of the interventions were successful in calming the situations down. Sopar said that the findings should be considered by local security officers, including police forces, to be more proactive in handling election-related violence. (koi)