Jakarta – In spite of the news that the legislative election attracted more people to exercise their right to vote this year, observers are troubled by the apparent level of vote buying.

"Vote buying could explain the increase in voter turnout [...] we saw more blatant vote buying practices this year than in the past," Arie Putra of the Democracy and Human Rights Research Center (Demos) said during a press conference on the youth and the legislative election on Wednesday.

Arie said that politicians involved in cash-for-votes tactics had targeted people from all walks of life. He said students, members of sports clubs and even and religious-based organizations were paid sweeteners to mobilize votes.

Demos also found that young voters were the most vulnerable to this sort of illicit practice. Arie said young voters had been failed by the General Elections Commission (KPU) as it had not disseminated sufficient information. He also said that younger voters had been influenced by dubious considerations, such as perceived "ties" to the candidates.

Election observers have drawn attention to the power young voters wielded in the elections this year.

Data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) shows there were 21.8 million citizens between 17 and 21 years of age who were eligible to vote for the first time this year. This group made up 11.7 percent of the 185.6 million voters registered by the KPU for the 2014 legislative election.

According to data released by the KPU, more voters participated in the 2014 legislative election than the 2009 legislative election, increasing 4.12 percent from 70.99 percent recorded in 2009.

In spite of allegations concerning rampant vote buying, the Elections Monitoring Agency (Bawaslu) said it had only handled 62 cases related to vote buying in the legislative election.

Demos, which was founded in 2002 by democracy activists and former politicians, conducted the research in Ambon, Maluku; Jayapura, Papua; Jakarta; North Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB); and Cirebon, West Java.

It monitored strongholds of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the Golkar Party and the United Development Party (PPP) in the five cities.

Meanwhile, political analyst Syamsuddin Haris of the Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI) declined to attribute the increased turnout to the practice of vote buying. He said voter turnout had increased because of better management of the final voter list (DPT).

Syamsudin said many voters were confused and had failed to cast their ballots in the 2009 legislative election because the KPU had been careless when managing population data from the Home Ministry for the DPT. He said that the KPU deserved praise for its management of this year's legislative election DPT. (put)

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/06/06/vote-buying-out-control-say-experts.html