CIDISS. Papua Province becomes one of the regions that will hold elections Serentak 2018. In addition to the provincial level, seven districts will also hold simultaneous elections, namely Biak Numfor, Deiyai, Jayawijaya, Central Mamberamo, Mimika, Paniai, and Peak. Nevertheless, the Executive Director of the Association for Election and Democracy (Perludem) Titi Anggraini said that the regions that will hold the pilkada are simultaneously included in conflict prone areas.
Based on previous pilkada experiences, the conflict even caused casualties. For example in the Pilkada Puncak 2011, as many as 57 people became casualties in the nomination stage. Meanwhile in the 2014 Jayawijaya election, one person became a victim during the formation of electoral districts.
One of the triggers of conflict vulnerability in the Papua Election is the existence of a noken system. The use of the noken system has been ratified by the decision of the Constitutional Court Number 47/81 / PHPU.A / VII / 2009, as an indigenous Papuan culture. There are two mechanisms for using the noken system. First, the use of noken to replace the ballot box, where the ballots are placed in the noken bag usually held by the witnesses of the candidate pair. Second, the noken system in which the chief selects for and on behalf of the voters in his tribal group. Both of these mechanisms are neither secret nor secretive. Thus, a one-man-one-vote system of one value can not be expected through the noken system. The noken system is more against the consensus selection which is usually based on mutual agreement or decision in a tribe represented by the tribal chief.
In addition, the noken system is very prone to cheating and often lead to disputes election results (PHPU) in the Constitutional Court (MK). In addition, in fact the noken system is also followed by the practice of intimidation, violence, and buying and selling votes so that it is used by candidates or political parties who are not responsible for buying votes by paying tribal chief to select a particular candidate.
The existence of violations by using the noken system is actually very unfortunate because the noken system was originally one of local wisdom. But today the system is turning into something manipulated both because of the pressure of violence and money intervention.
Along with the modernism, knowledge of political education, as well as access to better information, this noken system should be adapted to practices that better protect the rights of citizens. Citizen rights are the right of one person-one vote-one value and must be facilitated by the state in order to make a secret election. Moreover, in practice found noken-noken manipulated or intimidated because of the practice of money politics or bribery to the head of the tribe.
By: Mirwan Achmad *)
