New election law requiring each supporters’ ID to be verified individually could derail Ahok’s independent run

Most of the recent news about Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama’s independent run for governor in 2017 has been focused on the founders of Teman Ahok not being allowed into SIngapore. Unfortunately that story overshadowed a much more sinister story about the lengths Ahok’s political enemies are willing to go to prevent him and other independent candidates from running for office.

The new Regional Elections Bill (RUU Pilkada), which was passed in the House of Representatives last Thursday, includes provisions that severely tighten the process of verifying the identity cards (KTP) of supporters used to make independent candidates eligible to run for office.

Teman Ahok, the volunteer group, has already acquired nearly a million KTPs to support Ahok’s independent run (much more than the 532,000 minimum required) following all of the currently existing legal guidelines for verification. 

But the new local elections law requires that an additional level of verification be done using government census methods, meaning that government officials would go around and try to meet, individually, at their homes, all of the people who gave their KTPs in support of an independent candidate so they could personally verify their support. 
 
If the candidate’s supporters can not be met, then they would be “given the opportunity” to present themselves to to the office of the Voting Committee (PPS) within three days. If they were unable to do so, their KTPs would be declared invalid and their support would be stricken from the record.

Obviously this method of verification presents a huge logistical problem, especially in a place like Jakarta where we’re dealing with hundreds of thousands of KTPs they’d need to check. It is also obvious to many that this is an attempt by career politicians to derail Ahok’s  independent run.

 “The problem with the factual verification is people have to work. If an official from the election commission comes to a person’s house during a work day of course they can’t meet,” Ahok said as quoted by Kompas on Saturday.  

That’s only one of the many problems with this new law. Not only would it discriminate against busy working people, it’s also highly unlikely the government would provide enough officials to verify the huge number of KTPs in as short of a time frame the laws proposes.

Teman Ahok is not taking the new law lightly, and are preparing to challenge the new verification rules with the Supreme Court. However, even if they can’t successfully change the law, they say they are ready to do whatever it takes to comply with the new law and make sure every friend of Ahok has their voice heard
 



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