Gather Village Apparatus In 3 Regions, Monitoring Institute Accuses One Of The Candidates For The South Kalimantan Pilkada Of Covert Campaign

BANJARMASIN - The Election Monitoring Agency and the rescue of democracy in South Kalimantan found a hidden campaign by one of the prospective pairs of governor and deputy governor candidates who fought in the 2024 Pilkada.

"This covert campaign is by gathering village officials to invite them to vote for them," said Muhamad Arifin of the South Kalimantan Nusantara Vision Study Institute in Banjarmasin, Antara, Thursday, September 19.

Arifin said the results of the monitoring were a combination of five institutions that care about overseeing the course of democracy ahead of this year's simultaneous regional elections.

In his statement, he was accompanied by Muhammad Alwie Salim from the Lentera of the South Kalimantan Indonesian Youth Study, Tama from the Dharma Indonesia Hindu Student Association (KMHDI) South Kalimantan, Yoga Adiwidya from the South Kalimantan People's and Democracy Alliance and Yardie Rahman Heriyanto from the Muhammadiyah Student Association of South Kalimantan.

Arifin explained that the form of alleged violations by the prospective governor candidate occurred in three areas, namely Balangan Regency on September 8, 2024, Barito Kuala Regency on September 14, 2024, and Tabalong Regency on September 17, 2024.

The form of the event was wrapped in the All-Indonesian Village Government Association (Apdesi) by gathering village heads for campaigns.

"So these villages are promised to receive a large budget in the future if this gubernatorial candidate is elected," he said.

Arifin emphasized that the candidate's actions were clearly prohibited considering that they had not yet entered the campaign stage which had just begun on September 25. Moreover, to use state facilities in carrying out the covert campaign.

Based on these findings, Arifin together with five electoral monitoring and rescue agencies of democracy that were officially registered with the election organizers urged the South Kalimantan Bawaslu to carry out its role and function as supervisors to create honest and fair elections.

Then his party also asked Bawaslu to investigate whether the activities they had found were a form of violation so that action would be taken immediately.

"We want a follow-up to the regional election organizers including the legal section that passed the agenda so that it became a covert campaign," he said.

It is known that the South Kalimantan gubernatorial election for the year is filled with two pairs of candidates who have registered with the KPU, namely the Raudatul Jannah and Akhmad Rozanie Himawan and

the couple Muhidin and Hasnuryadi.

Raudatul Jannah is the wife of the current Governor of South Kalimantan, Sahbirin Noor, while Muhidin is the Deputy Governor of South Kalimantan.