CIDISS. The term “dawn raid” is inherent in every election, whether it’s the president, governor, mayor or regent. This strong action with money politics becomes the ultimate weapon of potential leaders to win the popular vote. The dawn attack is basically a covert campaign conducted by a successful team or local candidates directly by distributing the various needs of the electorate, usually in the form of money or food. Basically, the term “dawn attack” is given because it is often done before dawn.
As the main weapon to increase the elektabilitas of each candidate pair, the dawn attack is usually done near the time of voting. It aims to ensure that voters still remember which candidates have provided assistance so that voters will be expected to vote for the candidates when voting. In performing dawn raids, the chosen location is also not arbitrary, but rather into the pockets of the voice, or the mass base of the candidate pairs. In addition, candidate pairs are also targeting areas whose voters are still not making a choice (swing voters).
In Law no. 8 of 2015 on the Election of Regional Heads, there is no penalty sanction for money politicians. The law only regulates the disqualification of membership for candidates for regional head or political party. However, such action can still be criminalized by using the General Book of Criminal Law (KUHP), precisely article 149 paragraph 1 and 2. However, the main obstacle to carrying out the prosecution is the difficulty of monitoring it. Often dawn raids also do not use stickers or other props because the people who did dawn attack know directly to voters to vote for a particular candidate.
The existence of candidate pairs who do the dawn attack of course has become the government’s attention. The government is trying to anticipate it so that the election process can be done honestly and fairly.
By: Mirwan Achmad*)
