Needdem To Bawaslu After The 2024 Pilkada: Campaign Mitigation On Social Media During A Calm Period

Illustration of Bawaslu. (Antanews)

JAKARTA - The Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) sees the need for the General Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) to make mitigation efforts related to campaigns on social media in a quiet period so that in the future the narrative of political support in cyberspace can be monitored and monitored clearly.

"For Bawaslu, it is necessary to carry out a mitigation in the future, how the campaign on social media will not become a gray space, become a space that cannot be monitored, cannot be monitored because for example borderless (there are no limits) and so on," said researcher Needdem Haykal when met in Jakarta, Thursday, November 28, confiscated by Antara.

According to Perdem, clear rules for campaigns on social media are needed, especially for actors and political parties, so that there is no campaign narrative circulating on social media during calm times.

"When it enters a period of calm, any form of campaign is guaranteed on social media, it must be cleaned up, not only on the field," said Haykal.

Needdem admits that support for certain regional head candidate pairs is still rolling on social media during the calm period of the 2024 Pilkada. The narrative of the campaign was uploaded by influencers to state officials.

"We understand that the calm period should have been separated from a form of campaign implementation. However, we can both see, especially campaigns on social media, Bawaslu has not succeeded in conducting surveillance and also provides arrangements that can guarantee the occurrence of justice, equality," said Haykal.

This condition needs to be evaluated. Therefore, Needdem in the results of monitoring the 2024 Pilkada, one of which recommends that there be stricter arrangements regarding the granting of permits and regulations for state and government officials to campaign.

In monitoring the 2024 Pilkada, Needdem focuses on paying attention to the misuse of state resources. Even so, his party also monitors other aspects such as money politics and the technical implementation of regional elections on voting days and vote counting.

Needdem monitors the implementation of regional elections with a focus of three regions, namely North Sumatra, Jakarta, and Central Java. Monitoring is carried out at the end of the campaign period, a period of calm, as well as polling days and vote counting.

Broadly speaking, Needdem found allegations of violations in the form of the mobility of state apparatus, intimidation, money politics, and politicization of social assistance (bansos).

"We will review the results of this monitoring further, we need to look at it from the theoretical and academic limits that we believe are to conclude more firmly and provide recommendations that are much more substantive and comprehensive to legislators and also implementers of election administration," he said.