Questioning Sanctions For Anti-Climactic Election Health Protocol Violators

Illustrated (Irfan Meidianto / VOI)

JAKARTA - Setting sanctions for violators of health protocols while undergoing the 2020 Pilkada stages is considered an anticlimax. The prohibition and sanctions for pilkada participants in the issuance of General Election Commission Regulation (PKPU) Number 13 of 2020 did not satisfy many parties.

Researcher of the Community Concerned Parliamentary Forum (Formappi) Lucius Karus considers that the punishment for participants, both candidate pairs, political parties, and the 2020 Pilkada campaign team is still weak.

"Regarding the sanctions in PKPU, they are very soft. Generally only a written warning, nothing more serious, such as being reported to the police, then the police are then expected to punish those who violate health protocols," Lucius told VOI, Friday, September 25.

Lucius considers that the KPU's application of sanctions for crowd-makers during the COVID-19 pandemic will not deter health protocol violators.

"I think these sanctions will easily be underestimated by the candidate pairs. So, it is feared that the spread of COVID-19 will increase," he said.

The weak sanctions for violating health protocols in the 2020 Pilkada stage were also highlighted by the Executive Director of Perludem Khoirunnisa Nur Agustyani.

Khoirunnisa regretted that the KPU, the government, and the DPR RI have the spirit to change the rules only on KPU regulations. In fact, the KPU cannot provide strict administrative sanctions such as cancellation (disqualification) as a candidate pair in the 2020 Pilkada.

Because, he said, the preparation of rules in the 2020 Pilkada must still be based on Law Number 10 of 2016 concerning Pilkada, which contains election rules during normal times and not during pandemics.

"The KPU cannot disqualify because in the Pilkada Law there is no provision on this matter. So, the KPU cannot make these provisions in PKPU. In the Pilkada Law, the disqualification sanction can only be for violations of money politics," said Khoirunnisa.

Therefore, Khoirunnisa asked the authorities and organizers to postpone the implementation of the pilkada. The desire for this postponement has also been expressed by a number of figures such as the 12th Vice President of the Republic of Indonesia Jusuf Kalla, leaders of PP Muhammadiyah, and PBNU.

When postponing the election, Khoirunnisa said the government, KPU, and DPR could draft government regulations in lieu of laws (perppu) that could regulate stricter sanctions for violators of health protocols.

"We are actually proposing that there should be a Perppu to regulate this sanction. In a situation like this, we cannot rely solely on regulations in PKPU," Khoirunnisa explained.

"The impetus for postponing the regional elections does not mean that it is postponed until the pandemic is over, because we do not know when this pandemic will end. But, at least we are better prepared for regulations that are more adaptive to the pandemic situation," he continued.

For information, the KPU issued PKPU Number 13 of 2020 as an amendment to PKPU Number 6 of 2020 regarding the implementation of regional elections during a pandemic.

In Article 58 of this PKPU, political parties, candidate pairs and campaign teams prioritize limited campaign methods provided they are inside the building and limit the number of participants to a maximum of 50 people.

Then, Article 63 states that other activities that do not violate campaign prohibitions and the provisions of laws and regulations are carried out in the form of a campaign through social media and online media.

Then, there is a confirmation of the prohibition on music concert campaigns and the like in the addition of Article 88C in PKPU Number 13 of 2020.

"Political parties, coalitions of political parties, candidate pairs, campaign teams are prohibited from carrying out campaigns for rallies, performing arts, harvesting, music concerts, leisure walks, casual bicycles, competitions, bazaars, blood donations, and political party birthdays. "wrote the PKPU.

The lightest sanction that can be imposed for violators of health protocols in PKPU 13/2020 is a written warning from Bawaslu.

In addition, there are other sanctions in the form of terminating and forcibly dissolving the campaign at the place where the violation occurred if it does not immediately disband within one hour of being warned.

Then, the heaviest sanction is the prohibition of carrying out a campaign method that is violated for 3 days based on the recommendation of the provincial Bawaslu or district / city Bawaslu.

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