Health Protocol Violations During The 2020 Pilkada Campaign Continue To Increase

Illustration (Pixabay)

JAKARTA - The Indonesian Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) noted that there was a sharp increase in violations of health protocols during the 2020 Pilkada Simultaneous campaign, from the first 10 days and 10 days of the second campaign.

During the first 10 days of the campaign, from 26 September to 5 October, violations of health protocols in the campaign were 237 cases. Meanwhile, on the second 10 days of the campaign, from 6 October to 15 October, there were 375 customers.

"The difference in the number of health protocol violations increased by 138 cases. The increase occurred in line with the increasing number of campaign activities using face-to-face methods and limited meetings," said Bawaslu Member Mochammad Afifuddin in a statement received by VOI , Sunday, October 18.

The sanctions given by Bawaslu for violating the health protocol are a written warning to a candidate pair or campaign team, up to the dissolution of the campaign.

"Bawaslu issued 233 written warning letters in the second 10-day campaign period. The number increased by 163 letters compared to the first 10 days of the campaign with 70 written warning letters," Afif said.

Meanwhile, sanctions in the form of campaign dissolution in the first 10 days were 48 disbandments. Then, on the second day there were 35 dissolution sanctions.

Afif said, the increase in health protocol violations that occurred was in line with the increasing number of campaigns with limited meeting and face-to-face methods.

"There were 16,468 limited meeting campaign activities in 270 regions that held pilkada. This number has increased sharply compared to the first 10-day campaign period, which was 9,189 campaign activities," Afif said.

For information, the General Election Commission issued KPU Regulation (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.

Meanwhile Article 63 states that other activities that do not violate the campaign prohibition 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.

The heaviest sanction is the prohibition of conducting campaign methods that are violated for 3 days based on the recommendation of the provincial Bawaslu or district / city Bawaslu.