South Sulawesi Police Beware Of Potential ISU SARA In The 2024 Presidential Election

South Sulawesi (Sulsel) Police Chief Inspector General Setyo Boedi Moempoeni stated that his party is still wary of issues of ethnicity, religion, race and intergroup (SARA) which are allegedly blown by certain groups by increasing supervision during the 2024 General Election.

"The opportunity (SARA) is in every place. But we still prioritize a humanist approach to the community, and we communicate with religious leaders, stakeholders or stakeholders, and the government because it certainly affects the existence of the SARA conflict," said Inspector General Setyo Boedi in Makassar as reported by ANTARA, Saturday, July 1.

One of the efforts to prevent this potential from happening, said Setyo, was to order his staff from the Polsek, Polres to Polda levels as well as good coordination with religious leaders and local governments.

The police continue to monitor the level of election vulnerability in 24 regencies and cities in the South Sulawesi region with the KPU and regional Bawaslu to prevent security problems during the election stages.

"Of course, we evaluate the dynamics of vulnerability at the regional level every day. Together with the KPU and Bawaslu, we both map it out, because we have to overcome this together. We also have to avoid potential conflicts. We may have different choices of political parties, but we still maintain good relations with others," he said.

Separately, a member of the South Sulawesi Bawaslu, Siaful Jihad, said that his party had demonstrated the Election Insecurity Index (IKP). One indicator of vulnerability is the community's polarization of the issue of SARA. This is because something like this happened in the 2017 DKI Jakarta Pilkada and the 2019 elections.

"From the results of our mapping, indeed there are issues like that, we are worried about this. Indeed, then it is not in a security position, but this must be watched out for, because the impact is still felt and must be a common concern, especially the spread of hoax issues," he asserted.

In order to counter the hoax issue, said the man who is familiarly called Ipul, has collaborated with several independent institutions such as Mafindo and checked the facts on the purpose of minimizing the spread of hoaxes to people who use social media.

"The issue of hoaxes using SARA through social media needs to be a concern, because in our opinion, it can be an entry point to damage our democratic order which is growing over time," he said.