Bawaslu Did Not Find Prabowo-Gibran Violations At The United Village Event

Chairman of Bawaslu Rahmat Bagja (ANTARA)

Chairman of Bawaslu Rahmat Bagja said there was no invitation to choose presidential and vice presidential candidates Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka at village apparatus associations from all over Indonesia who were members of the United Village at Gelora Bung Karno (GBK), Senayan, last Sunday.

This, said Bagja, was based on the monitoring of the Bawaslu ranks who were present at the event.

"We were clear at that time, there were a lot of questions from friends. There was no Bawaslu, who said nothing. This video is there, we are there. First, there was an invitation (to choose) or not? The report from the existing supervisor, there was no invitation to vote," said Bagja in his statement, Tuesday, November 21.

It's just that, said Bagja, his party will look into reports, including videos from the election supervisory team which directly oversees the running of the United Village event. This is to ensure whether there is an election violation at the event.

"We'll see later when the video is there, we'll see later and we'll examine the report from the supervisor in the field at that time," he said.

Bagja admitted that Bawaslu must also be careful because the involvement of the apparatus and village heads is prohibited in the campaign team. According to him, Article 280 of Law Number 7 of 2017 concerning Elections clearly prohibits the apparatus and village heads in the campaign team and sanctions for the ban are criminal.

However, he said, the problem was that these provisions were in effect during the campaign period which had just started on November 28, 2023.

"It's clear in the law. Remember, the ban on campaigns is Article 280. Campaign. Is it a campaign or not? Not yet, so you have to be careful. When it comes to the campaign period, then the action is an allegation, for example an alleged election crime because it is included in the campaign ban," Bagja explained.

Furthermore, Bagja appealed to the future campaign team not to raise village heads during the campaign period because if this happens, it is included in the category of violations of the Election Law. Likewise with the village head not to be active in massraising events to win the 2024 presidential election.

"Of course, please choose but it is not allowed then the village head is organized to have a certain candidate pair, it is not allowed. Especially when the campaign later the village head will have to collect his citizens to choose someone, it's not allowed, that's a crime," concluded Bagja.