50 Pilkada Campaign Days: 1,448 Campaigns Violating Health Protocols
JAKARTA - The Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) noted that there were 1,448 campaign activities for the 2020 Pilkada in the form of face-to-face violations of health protocols during 509 campaign days.
"The violations committed were the crowd without guarding their distance, not wearing masks, and the unavailability of hand washing facilities," Bawaslu member Mochammad Afifuddin said in his statement, Tuesday, November 17.
Afif said, there is an increasing trend of health protocol violations in physical campaigns. Bawaslu divides five periods per 10 days. In the first 10 days, Bawaslu recorded 118 campaigns that violated health protocols.
Furthermore, in the second 10 days, there were 268 campaigns that violated, in the third 10 days 331 campaigns, the fourth 10 days 333 campaigns, and the fifth 10 days there were 398 physical campaigns that violated health protocols.
According to Afif, Bawaslu provides two types of sanctions for these violations, namely a written warning or the dissolution of the activity.
"Dissolution is carried out by election supervisors, Satpol PP, and the police based on Bawaslu's recommendations. Dissolution is carried out if warnings of violations of health protocols (prokes) are ignored," said Afif.
"Apart from that, there were campaign organizers who took the initiative to disband the activity after being warned by the election supervisor," he added.
Afif asked the pairs of regional head candidates and the winning team to reduce campaign activities that allow face-to-face meetings, especially causing crowds.
Bawaslu encourages campaign activities with online methods to be maximized. This is because the number of online campaigns on the fifth day of the campaign actually decreased compared to the previous one.
"There are 49 online campaign activities recorded by Bawaslu which were held during the fifth 10 campaign days. The number decreased compared to the 10 campaign days, which were 56 activities," he added.