Bawaslu Records 1,383 Pilkada Violations: 637 ASN Cases Are Not Neutral

Bawaslu member Ratna Dewi Pettalolo. (Photo: Bawaslu)

JAKARTA - The Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) noted that there were 1,383 violations that occurred during the 2020 Simultaneous Pilkada Continuous, both based on findings and reports.

"In the Bawaslu violation data, 1,136 findings and 247 reports have been recorded," said Bawaslu member Ratna Dewi Pettalolo in her statement, Friday, September 18.

Ratna explained that most violations originated from violations of the neutrality of the State Civil Service (ASN), totaling 637 cases. In addition, there were 310 cases of administrative violations, 18 election crimes, and 82 violations of the code of ethics.

"The highest violations were based on findings with 110 findings in Central Sulawesi Province, 99 findings in South Sulawesi, and 86 in North Maluku. Meanwhile, the highest violations from the report were 28 in South Sulawesi, and 23 in North Sumatra," he explained.

The difficulty of Maintaining ASN Neutrality

The many violations for the neutrality of ASN, said Ratna, proved it was difficult not to show their voting rights to candidate pairs.

This, said Ratna, has caused many violations in the field related to ASN neutrality. Of the 637 cases of neutrality, 218 of them provided support on social media.

"This is indeed a position that is often not easy. On the one hand, they have the right to vote, but on the one hand they are also asked to take neutral action," said Ratna.

Even so, Ratna assessed that the handling of ASN neutrality violations is currently getting better because the ASN Committee has taken action against violations progressively.

"Many cases have been recommended to be sanctioned by PPK. KASN's recommendation is reported directly to the President, so this can have a deterrent effect," he said.

"This is expected to minimize the number of ASN neutrality violations, which usually the peak of these violations will occur at the campaign stage," concluded Ratna.