SP/Hizbul Ridho, Jakarta – The General Election Commission, or KPU, has announced it will form an ethics committee to oversee pollsters, a move it hopes will squeeze out unreliable survey institutions.

KPU commissioner Sigit Pamungkas said the measure was in response to an increasing number of biased survey foundations.

The issue was highlighted in the wake of last year's presidential election, where dodgy quick counts issued by pollsters sowed confusion among the public and led both candidates to declare themselves victorious.

Two survey institutions were subsequently booted from the Indonesia's polling association – the Public Opinion Survey Association (Persepi) – after they refused to be audited. They both declared losing presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto victorious.

Eight of Indonesia's most respected survey companies showed that Joko Widodo won the election by a margin of between 3 and 5 percentage points.

Sigit said the ethics committee would have authority to impose sanctions if pollsters were found to have manipulated the data.

"The KPU will be able to prohibit the survey groups from making a survey and impose punishments by banning them from participating in the next local election for instance," Sigit told reporters on Wednesday.

Organisations will have to register with the committee, which would consist of experts in survey methodology, academics and activists, and will obtain a certificate to show they are bound by KPU regulations.

Groups that were not deemed credible would be named publicly, Sigit said. "We can let the public judge whether or not the survey group is credible," he said.

The KPU, however, would not have authority to impose legal sanctions on groups that did not meet standards.

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/kpu-form-ethics-committee-monitor-dodgy-pollsters/