By: Stephen Son Immanuel )*
All people in the country must be able to jointly realize the holding of a good and fair democratic party. It is also very important to prevent the practice of money politics in the 2024 election because this practice is the root of all problems for future officials when they are already elected.
Every time a democratic General Election (Election) is held, as it is now, where there will be elections in 2024, usually the candidates who will advance to the contest, such as candidates for Regional Heads or members of the legislature, will make lots of their sweet promises. to society.
In fact, it’s not just sweet promises that are being made, but it’s not uncommon for some of the candidates to spread out envelopes containing a sum of money or also food parcels and give them to the public. So, when they have done this, it is very clear that they are consciously committed to the practice of money politics, which is a corrupt practice and could lead to various other types of corruption.
Money politics (money politics) is an attempt to influence the choice of voters (voters) or election organizers with material or other rewards. From this understanding, money politics is a form of bribery. This practice eventually gave rise to leaders who only cared about personal and group interests, not the people who voted for them. He feels obligated to seek benefits from his position, one of which is to return the capital that has gone out in the campaign.
So, for example, after these candidate leaders and officials who during their campaign period practiced money politics, when they take office later, they will commit various kinds of fraud, including accepting bribes, gratuities or other corruption in many forms. So it is not surprising that indeed money politics itself can be called the ‘mother of corruption’.
For this reason, it can also be said that the practice of money politics is a very dangerous thing and absolutely cannot be allowed to continue in Indonesia, especially at every election event. Because money politics is a source of many other frauds, this must really be prevented and eliminated.
Still alluding to the implementation of the 2024 Election, Member of the General Election Supervisory Board (Bawaslu), Herwyn JH Malonda explained that there were several strategic issues and there were also problems in supervising the implementation of the 2024 Election stages.
So that with these various problems, according to him, it is also very important to have supervision and involvement from all elements of society in the country to be able to jointly prevent these problems from happening and create a good democratic climate and jointly realize the smooth running of the 2024 elections. .
One of the things that is highlighted regarding the problems in the election is at the campaign stage, namely when there are prospective leaders who use state facilities and also they actually apply the practice of money politics to be able to attract the hearts of potential voters to support them and gain votes.
Apart from that, according to Herwyn, there are also a number of things related to the campaign that have the potential to be problematic, such as the installation of APKs (campaign props) that are not in accordance with the provisions, then there are irregularities with the involvement of ASN (state civil apparatus), and campaigns that are not on schedule and donations .
Regarding campaign funding and the election itself, there are still other problems, such as when there are campaign funds that do not comply with procedures, then there are donations that exceed the limit and there is a discrepancy between the funds and the campaign activities carried out.
Meanwhile, former Bawaslu chairman Abhan also said that preventing the practice of money politics cannot only rely on election organizers, but the community must also be active and act decisively. According to him, the public can do two things, namely rejecting the money given and not electing a candidate for a leader who engages in money politics.
Although it is not easy, according to him it is very important to do because money politics is the root of all other problems that may also arise in the future.
On the other hand, with the practice of money politics, of course the public must also be increasingly aware of the circulation of counterfeit money. The chairman of the DPRD for Palangkaraya City, Central Kaliamantan, Sigit K Yunianto said that if the public saw a group of people circulating counterfeit money, they could immediately report it to the police and take strict action.
The 2024 election must indeed be prevented from the practice of money politics which may be carried out by a number of parties in order to gain votes. Therefore, the whole community must be able to jointly realize a good democratic party full of the principles of justice.
)* The author is a contributor to Citaprasada Institute
