Bawaslu Recorded 2,126 Health Protocol Violations During The 2 Months Of The 2020 Pilkada Campaign

Bawaslu Building (Irfan Meidianto / VOI)

JAKARTA - The Indonesian Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) recorded 2,126 health protocol violations when carrying out the 2020 simultaneous regional election campaign which began on September 26. This violation occurred during face-to-face campaigns.

"During the two months of the 2020 Pilkada campaign phase, the face-to-face campaign method reached 91,640 activities. Of these, Bawaslu found 2,126 cases of health protocol violations," said Bawaslu Member Mochammad Afifuddin in his statement, Thursday, November 26.

Afifuddin also noted that the trend of implementing physical campaign activities continued to increase and became the most popular.

In fact, both candidate pairs and campaign teams have been asked to maximize the use of campaigns with internet networks, such as online campaigns and social media.

Furthermore, Afif divides campaign trends every ten days. The increase in the trend of face-to-face campaigns was seen in 18,025 campaigns in the sixth ten days.

"Bawaslu noted that the face-to-face campaign continued to increase compared to before, namely to 18,025 activities. As for the fifth 10 days of the campaign period, namely on November 5 to 14, 2020, there were 17,738 face-to-face activities," said Afif.

In more detail, Afif explained there were 373 health protocol violations in 18,025 face-to-face campaigns in the sixth ten days.

The sanctions imposed by Bawaslu are the issuance of warning letters against 328 campaign violations and the dissolution of 39 campaigns in the sixth ten days.

In addition to prosecution, Bawaslu also prevents violations of prokes in campaign implementation. Bawaslu even issued recommendations to candidate pairs and winning teams to reduce the quantity of face-to-face campaigns.

"At least, there are 21 provincial and district / city Bawaslu who recommend reducing the campaign using face-to-face methods and / or limited meetings," said Afif.