0 Bali gears up to welcome elections

Bali is gearing up to welcome the upcoming legislative and presidential elections by preparing all the necessary requirements expected for the event. The General Elections Commission (KPU) office in Denpasar said that the 12 contesting political parties had prepared a total of Rp 1.3 billion (US$106,443) to recruit people as vote witnesses. “We assume that every witness is paid Rp 100,000,” office chief I Gede Jhon Dharmawan said on Saturday. 

Jhon said that the parties would hire 1,375 people as witnesses, who would be deployed in 1,131 voting booths (TPS) across the city. “Each party will be deploying one of their witnesses at each TPS,” he said. Jhon said the existence of vote witnesses was crucial to prevent corrupt practices and avoid disputes, since the supervision teams from his side lacked human resources. “We expect to have one supervision committee member in every village to monitor the voting process up to the counting,” he said. 

Each witness will be given the result recapitulation, which may be used in case of disputes over the election process. Jhon said all members of the commission would meet on Feb. 6 to consolidate preparations to bring successful elections to Bali. “The coordination meeting will be about the preparations for the legislative, as well as the presidential, election. All KPU members in the province, totaling 3,000 people, will be involved,” he said. 

The Denpasar Elections Supervisory Committee (Panswaslu) chairman, I Wayan Sudarsana, said he had recruited the number of team members required. “We have publicly announced the team’s formation. The members are from the public and university students,” he said. Sudarsana said the formation was based on instruction by the Bali Election Supervisory Committee (Bawaslu). “We are ready, although the funds have yet to be disbursed by Bawaslu,” he said. 

Meanwhile, the KPU branch in Buleleng said it had difficulties getting a room for document storage. KPU Buleleng chief Gede Suardana said on Friday that his side had finally received permission from the regional administration to use a hall in SMK 3 Singaraja vocational school, despite this being rejected by the school committee. Suardana said the utilization had been agreed upon by Buleleng Regent Agus Suradnyana and the school principal, and was witnessed by regency secretary Dewa Ketut Puspaka and KPU Buleleng secretary. 

Papers related to this will be prepared this week, saying that the permit is provided for Feb. 16 until May, or after the legislative election is over. Regarding the school committee’s refusal, he said that his side considered that the utilization was in the national interest, which was greater than the school’s. The school committee rejected the proposal to utilize the hall as KPU’s temporary document storage, saying that students needed it for various activities.

source : bali daily