By: Rahmat Kartolo *
The April 17 election was over, but various provocative efforts still colored the frenzy of democracy, ranging from winning claims only from the results of internal surveys, to the delegation of KPU with various hoaxes and slanderous news. This received a response from the Minister of Communication and Information Rudiantara. His party appealed to all parties to hold back and not spread hoaxes to the KPU. The Ministry of Communication and Information and the KPU are currently working together to fight the spreaders of the hoax.
Regarding the vote count of the 2019 Election. He requested that all parties be patient and wait for manual vote counting, from sub-districts, regencies and cities, to the national level.
“Yes, however, we have to wait for the legitimate number, that is, from the results of the KPU’s calculations. The manual was actually taken from the polling station, then collected in the sub-district, regency, the city was just scanned, uploaded here, later the paper followed later. But wait for any decision from the KPU and others do not make manaslah, “said Rudiantara.
He also said that the Ministry of Communication and Information and the KPU had formed a task force (task force) to deal with hoaxes that attacked the KPU. He asked the community to respect the KPU’s hard work.
“KPU is indeed an independent institution to hold elections, so we respect not to make hoaxes towards the KPU. We respect friends, sorry for the hard work still thrown hoaxes too, “he said.
The same thing was echoed by 98 activists who also reminded the two camps to wait for the official results from the KPU. Adian Napitulu, an activist who is part of the National Association of Activists 98 (Pena98), said that the results of the quick count of 12 survey institutions have proven that Jokowi won, but remember the people must guard their commitment to the people.
He also reminded the losing groups in the General Election not to continue to blow up the issue and try to move the people through unconstitutional “people power” activities.
Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono as Kogasma of the Democratic Party appealed to all parties to respect the process of counting the ongoing votes. He requested that this process be escorted so as not to be misused. The presidential candidate for incumbent Jokowi, seemed reluctant to excessively celebrate the victory of candidate pair 01 based on quick count results or quick counts. He did not do this to prevent riots.
Chairman of the KPU RI Arief Budiman, asked all parties to make the guidelines for the results of the vote count held by his party. Whereas, for survey institutions that do quick counts, it is enough to only be used as a reference, because the results of the survey are not official results.
“If there is a quick count that makes an exit poll, make it a reference. Make it an information, “said Arief.
It will determine the results of the 2019 election nationally at the latest 35 days after voting, thus the official results of the 2019 election can only be known at the latest 22 May 2019. If later there are objections to the election results, Arief also invited parties who objected to file a lawsuit against Constitutional Court.
“Suppose there is enough evidence that the results do not match what you see, you believe, the space to file the dispute has also been provided. The outcome dispute can be resolved at the Constitutional Court, “he said.
Of course with the existence of the system, the utterance of hatred does not need to be addressed to anyone, be it the KPU, Bawaslu or KPPS, the feeling of unity must be re-knit, not to make relations between neighbors tenuous just because of different choices.
The 3rd President of the Republic of Indonesia BJ Habibie also appealed to all Indonesians to join hands in advancing development in various sectors. Although quick count can be a reference, a number of journalists who are members of the pro-democracy independent journalist association (PWI-PD) remind companies or survey institutions to be careful in conducting quick counts in the 2019 election. Because manipulative quick counts are very risky and can break nation.
Quick count not only confuses the public, but also can create clashes in the community, this is because the quick count will have an impact on public perceptions and on the quality of elections and democracy in Indonesia. For this reason, the wise step we can do is wait for the official results from the KPU, without delegitimizing the independent institution.
- The author is an observer of social and political problems