LIPI Asks The Government-DPR To Postpone The 2020 Pilkada

Illustrations (Photo: Irfan Meidianto / VOI)

JAKARTA - The Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) has asked the government and the Indonesian Parliament to postpone the implementation of the 2020 Pilkada amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Head of the LIPI Political Research Center, Firman Noor, considers that the continued implementation of the 2020 Pilkada is not in line with the principle of democratic governance which is formed based on the will of the people.

"We recommend to the government and the DPR to postpone the implementation of the 2020 Pilkada. Being insistent on holding the 2020 Pilkada is not a wise attitude," Firman said in a webinar discussion, Thursday, October 1.

There are a number of reasons why LIPI is pushing for the 2020 Pilkada to be postponed again. According to Firman, the current development of the COVID-19 case does not yet describe the real condition.

Moreover, the implementation of the COVID-19 test is still below standard figures. Therefore, the government has no reason to continue the 2020 Pilkada by taking references from the election activities of developed countries such as South Korea.

"In comparison, several countries holding elections in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic situation, such as South Korea (on April 15, 2020) and Singapore (on July 10, 2020), have relatively been able to control the COVID-19 pandemic relatively well," he explained.

Furthermore, Firman saw the facts in the field related to the implementation of the 2020 Pilkada stages. This shows that the level of discipline is still low to comply with the Covid-19 health protocol.

This is supported by the development of the 2020 Pilkada Vulnerability Index issued by Bawaslu. There are indications that 50 regencies / cities are holding the elections for the category of high risk of COVID-19 transmission.

"The crowd and procession of supporters of candidate pairs is still happening and difficult to control," said Firman.

He continued, there is no guarantee that regional head candidates will change the way they campaign, because in practice many things are violated and there are irregularities.

"This is the impact of the political tradition in Indonesia when political election performances are synonymous with mass crowds and massive (mass) mobilization of physical support," he continued.

For information, the number of health protocol violations committed by regional head candidate pairs in the 2020 Pilkada during the registration period on September 4 to 6 caused a response from many parties.

A number of religious institutions such as Nahdlatul Ulama, PP Muhammadiyah have asked for the implementation of the 2020 Pilkada to be postponed for reasons of public safety from COVID-19 transmission.

Not only that, the 12th Vice President of the Republic of Indonesia Jusuf Kalla also asked that the regional elections be postponed. Even so with several civil society coalitions.

Unfortunately, on September 21, the government, namely the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Indonesian Parliament, the General Election Commission (KPU), the Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu), and the Honorary Council for Election Implementation (DKPP) agreed not to postpone the election day for the 2020 Pilkada on 9 Next December.