2024, Elections With Two Eyes

Photo Illustration By Andry Winarko

JAKARTA - The election implementation in which there is a design to perpetuate power is very worrying for many parties. This was marked by an event, which according to Eep Saefulloh Fatah as an attempt to crash into the rules. This is also exactly what three Bivitri Constitutional Law experts Susanti, Zainal Arifin Muchtar and Fery Amzari described in the film "Dirty Vote".

The indications of fraud began with a process at the Constitutional Court (MK) where they used the instrument of kinship relations to pass Gibran Rakabuming Raka to become Prabowo's vice presidential candidate. Furthermore, after being passed in the Constitutional Court, the General Elections Commission (KPU) made its ratification.

The next indications of fraud, the three expert on State Law, observed Jokowi's steps which began to prepare people around him were close people. Like changing the position of TNI Commander before his time.

As well as the appointment of executive officials who are considered to have the potential to be used to perpetuate power. Since 2021 Jokowi has appointed the person in charge (Pj) through the Minister of Home Affairs. Through Jokowi's blessing, the president can appoint and give extraordinary influence to the appointment of regents/mayors and their representatives and 20 governor officials in Indonesia.

The appointment is considered not to comply with the provisions of the Constitutional Court, where the Constitutional Court states that the appointment of the Acting Officer must be carried out transparently and openly, and must also listen to the aspirations of the community and local governments and obey technical regulations. These requirements exist so that the appointment can be fair and avoid potential appointments being used for the benefit of winning certain candidate pairs

Slander At The End Of The Election

Meanwhile, Bivitri's role highlighted the rapid provision of social assistance from the president ahead of the election. From Rp496 billion to Rp506 billion, a lot of assistance was disbursed in various forms. The disbursement was not as big as during the Covid-19 pandemic. There is also a strange and populist policy, for example, issuing a policy of increasing salaries for civil servants and the TNI/Polri, including an increase in PPPK salaries which rose 8 percent, and an increase in retirement of up to 12 percent in 2024. Meanwhile, salary workers only rose 3-4 percent.

According to them, the party who should have the authority to supervise the fraud is Bawaslu. However, according to them, Bawasalu is incompetent in carrying out this task. The KPU also has the same problem. The KPU as the party that is expected to screen or become the door to the candidate verification. It is considered here that it has a role to play for determining which party does not pass according to the design of the interested party.

There are allegations that the KPU institution plays a role in presenting the theory of shadow parties. Certain parties are passed while other parties are not in the interests of certain parties. Especially the case of the Gelora Party and the Ummat Party. The KPU often serves the party, not a servant of public rights.

In closing the 3 propagators concluded that this plan was not designed overnight nor was it designed alone, this systematic and massive fraud plan was not prepared long ago and involved other parties.

They are a force that has been in power for 10 years together, political competition and fraudulent designs that were prepared together, fell into the hands of key holders of power, and could move the apparatus for the desired purpose. Designs like this are not new and have been done in many countries, many regimes. To carry out this design, there is no need to be intelligent, all that is needed is mental curacity and shamelessness.

Responding to the film Dirty Vote, the Legal Team and Advocacy for the Prabowo-Gibran National Campaign Team (TKN), Habiburokhman at a press conference at the Media Center of TKN Prabowo-Gibran, which they held on Jalan Sriwijaya, South Jakarta, Sunday (11/2), stated that Indonesia as a democratic country really respects the freedom to speak up and have opinions, but he assessed that the film actually tends to have a slanderous tone.

"We need to convey that most of what is conveyed in the film, is something with a slanderous tone, a very assumptive, and highly scientific hate narrative," Habiburokhman said on that occasion.

His party questioned the certainty of the figures in the film and was deemed to be planning to sabotage the election. "How come it seems, there is a desire to sabotage elections, wanting to degrade this election," he said.

Potential Cheating Elections

One of the figures in the film Dirty Vote, Fery Amsari emphasized that this film was made for the benefit and assures the public that in the 2024 election they dare to change the situation where power cannot determine its own sustainability.

In addition, Dirty Vote was created because of concerns with the 2024 General Election which is full of constitutional engineering which can be proven through research and study. And from the studies and research that we conducted on the organizers, it turns out that there are indeed engineering and intellectual actors, in this case the president," he said in a podcast with Bambang Widjojanto, Tuesday, February 13.

Feri explained that they conducted a study for a long time to find out the potential for fraud that had occurred and would occur, and the results had already been exposed before representatives of Paslon 01 (represented by Bambang Widjojanto), Paslon 02 (represented by Habiburokhman) and Paslon 03 (represented by Todung Mulya Lubis). At that time, he continued, even Habiburokhman added the potential for fraud such as the case in Sorong which was also included in the film Dirty Vote.

He revealed that this film only wants to show that the potential for fraud in the 2024 General Election is carried out in a structured, Systematic and Massive manner (TSM) because from upstream to downstream it has an extraordinary series that is impossible if it is random and unplanned.

Ini juga untuk menjawab penggerang opini hanya satu periode yang diharapkan rezim. Meski sebenarnya untuk membantah opini satu lapang sudah ada penelitian yang dilakukan Eep Saefulloh Fatah. Karena salah satu pemusuhan demokrasi dari pusat ke daerah tidak-jangan teman lembaga survei. Meski tidak semua lembaga survei bermain untuk membawa opinsi, tuturnya.

"We hope that the public can see this clearly. Because the public has a simple choice, against the regime by not choosing it or not suffering too much if they are in power," continued Feri.

Director of Indobarometer, Muhammad Qodari assessed, actually there is nothing new in the film Dirty Vote. This is because all the existing materials are only compilation of stories or news that have appeared in the mass and social media.

"Basically, if this film is narrated towards a particular candidate pair, not only Paslon 02, but also to Paslon 03 and 01. In my opinion, the friends in the film are lecturers who are also activists, and usually an activist always thinks extremely," he said.

"In my opinion, actually this film attacks or criticizes the political system in Indonesia as a whole. Is the current political system only Jokowi's responsibility? Of course not, because existing political parties must also be responsible," Qodari added.

He emphasized that the material presented in the Dirty Vote Film related to TSM fraud was very weak because it did not display the logic of voting behavior' which is usually understood by people with political backgrounds.

"Because they are all set in law, it is not continued on the analysis that there are rationality, sociology and personality factors. So what is used is structural or legal glasses, not the voters who have their own logic," he explained.

Weak Institutional Control At The End Of The Regime

Responding to the implementation of elections under concerns about fraud, Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Indonesia, Fitra Arsil said that elections could be double-edged, however, elections were considered as the main procedure for the operation of democracy, but in reality, elections were not always a tool to encourage the sustainability of democracy in a country.

Elections are also used as a tool for the benefit of non-democracy. Unlike the non-democratic regimes in the past that came to power without going through the legitimacy of people's voices, " Modern non-democratic regimes have actually used the process of granting legitimacy of people's voices as a tool that helps their non-democratic rule," he told VOI, Monday, February 12.

According to him, in some regimes that have low performance or regimes that want the occurrence of leadership dynasties recently, elections have been used as a tool to strengthen their legitimacy. These regimes actually want the implementation of general elections instead of rejecting them as the authoritarian regimes have done in the past. The rulers of this failed regime carried out elections because they believed that elections could extend the life of their regime with new legitimacy.

For regimes like this, elections refresh their legitimacy and become a support to continue the power carried out far from democratic values. Thus, elections as a procedure for democracy do not always produce democratic governments. Therefore, it is very important to ensure that there is no reduction in democratic procedures and values in the general election process.

Every violation, policy engineering and ethical deviation must have strong control. It is hoped that institutional control will be carried out by a legislative institution, but a government that has high power partisans in parliament will usually gain weak control from parliament. He reminded that people's reaction to control must be considered as a form of people's political participation, democratic procedures are not limited to formal procedures as in the electoral mechanism in the law.