0 KPU: Qualifying Parties Able to Promote Selves

The General Elections Commission gave the green light for the 10 parties qualifying for the 2014 election to go ahead with various social activities to promote themselves but banned them from open campaigning in the streets or media advertisements. “Starting [on Friday] they can start campaigning, but not open campaigning or using advertising in mass media,” said commission chairman Husni Kamil Manik. The commission also known as the KPU earlier announced 10 parties that qualified to participate in the upcoming legislative election while disqualifying 24 other parties in the latest screening process. 

Nine of the qualified parties already have seats in the current parliament while the National Democratic Party (NasDem) became the only non-House party to qualify. The KPU is expected to decide the order of the parties in the 2014 election next week but the parties don’t have to wait. They can begin holding public activities while displaying their party attributes and logos. KPU commissioner Ferry Kurnia Rizkyansyah said parties can also begin introducing their legislative candidates as long as it is done in events with limited participants or through personal communication channels. 

“The campaign methods are restricted to limited meetings, face to face campaigning, banners and the distribution of flyers,” Ferry said. The KPU is also allowing sports and cultural celebrations to be staged by the parties or individual candidates as well as the use of social media and e-mails. Ferry added that houses of worship, toll roads, hospitals and government offices will be off limits to any form of campaigning. The KPU will provide a temporary window of March 16 to April 5 for parties and their candidates to advertise or stage mass campaign rallies. 

But the rallies will be limited to just 1,000 participants for the national level and 250 at the district level. Also, they must notify the KPU and police about such rallies ahead of time. Another KPU commissioner, Hadar Nafis Gumay, called on political parties who qualified to run in next year’s election to refrain from using posters and stickers that destroys walls and trees through their use of adhesives. “We encourage the use of pamphlets. We will formulate this in [the election campaign] technical guideline,” he said. Hadar said the sanction for parties who continue to paste posters and stickers on walls and trees will come from the voters who like to see their neighborhood tidy. 

The KPU, he said, will invite people to report any violation and pledge to disclose all parties that violate regulations and guidelines to the public for voters to know. But the commission will provide real sanctions to parties and candidates that conduct mass rallies and media advertisements outside of the specified time. The KPU, he said, is also partnering with the Indonesian Broadcast Commission and the Press Council to keep the media neutral throughout the campaign period. Media neutrality in political issues has been the source of heated debate in Indonesia with several major media groups tied to senior politicians or businesses with political connections. 

NasDem is backed by two media tycoons, Hary Tanoesoedibjo and Surya Paloh. Hary owns the MNC Group, which has four national television stations, a newspaper named Seputar Indonesia, several weeklies, tabloids, news portals and national radio networks. Surya is the owner of MetroTV and Media Indonesia. Meanwhile, Golkar Party chairman and presidential candidate Aburizal Bakrie has control over tvOne, AnTV and news portal VivaNews.

source : the jakarta globe