VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Officials involved in administering the 2019 General Election outlined the challenges and work underway to ensure a transparent election process. General Election Commission (KPU) Chairman Dr. Arief Budiman, Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) Commissioner Fritz Edward Siregar and Executive Director of Association for Election and Democracy (Perludem) Titi Anggraini discussed the challenges of staging the world’s largest single-day election during Voice of Indonesia Diplomatic Forum themed Creating Successful Simultaneously Elections at Jusuf Ronodipuro Auditorium, RRI building Jakarta, on Tuesday (29/1). Dr Arief observed that for the first time the 2019 presidential election on April 17 will involve the simultaneous election of five different tiers of government, presidential and vice-presidential, provincial, district/city and sub-district legislative elections, requiring the participation of 7.2 million staff to oversee the election.  While, according to Titi Anggraini one of the biggest challenges facing election organisers is the information gap.

“When voters tend to focus on the presidential election, they don’t know we will receive five ballot papers. They just think that the voting day we will only elect the presidential candidate. Inequality to accessing information is one of our passion. How to reach  the information of the track record of candidates,” said Titi Anggraini.

This problem is exacerbated by legislative candidates refusing to disclose their curriculum vitae to voters. Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) Commissioner Fritz Edward Siregar also discussed the problem of hate-speech and hoaxes, outlining that they had learned a lot about how social media had been used to undermine the democratic process in the US and Brazilian elections. (VOI/Stephen/DP)

Chairman of the Indonesian General Election Commission (KPU) Arief Budiman said that although elections in Indonesia were considered the most complicated ones, the Indonesian government is ready to hold the elections. Speaking at the Diplomatic Forum talk show themed Creating Successful Simultaneous General Election held by Voice of Indonesia in Jakarta on Tuesday (01/29), Arief said that the 2019 General Election in Indonesia was the most expensive election in history, in terms of costs, people, voting, vote counting, and vote recapitulation process.

"The most expensive election in our history; money, people, and also the reason for finishing voting, counting and the recapitulation process," said Arief Budiman.

Meanwhile, the Executive Director of Perludem (Association for Elections and Democracy), a non-profit organization dealing with research, advocacy, monitoring, education and training in electoral and democratic fields, Titi Anggraini expressed concern that the upcoming general election would be too complicated for voters to vote rationally. Titi Anggraini said that in previous years, presidential elections were held separately from legislative elections. This year, Indonesian voters will be given five ballot papers; ballots for Presidential and Vice Presidential for Legislative Election at the central, provincial, city and regency levels. Titi Anggraini added that in her constituency, there were at least more than 400 legislative candidates. According to he, some of the legislative candidates have not uploaded their Curriculum Vitae , to the campaign website, therefore their organizations recommend not choosing them. (VOI / LISA / AHM)

Non-profit organisation Perludem’s Executive Director Titi Anggraini spoke Tuesday (29/01) about her concerns the upcoming election will be too complicated for people to vote rationally. Speaking at Diplomatic Forum talk show themed Creating Successful Simultaneous General Election held by Voice of Indonesia at Auditorium Jusuf Ronodipuro, RRI, in Jakarta on Tuesday (29/01), Titi Anggraini said that in previous years, presidential elections were held separately from other divisions. This year, Indonesian voters will be presented with five ballot papers; voting will cover the presidential, vice presidential, regional, provincial and local positions. Indonesia is a vast archipelago made up of 17 thousand islands and around 260 million people. A simultaneous general election will be no small feat.

“The upcoming election is not only the most complex election in the world, but also the most complex election in the world and in the heaven.”

Titi Anggraini added in her electorate district, at least there are more than 400 candidates. According to her, some of those candidates have not uploaded their Curriculum Vitae to campaign websites. She said her organisation recommended not voting for these candidates. Meanwhile, Chairman of General Election Commission (KPU) Arief Budiman said despite the scale of the election, the government is prepared for the election. He said the commission has 7.2 million staff adding that Indonesia’s 2019 General Election is the most expensive election in the history in terms of money, people, voting, counting and the calculation process. (VOI/LISA/AHM)

Indonesia and Turkey held the third round of talks to discuss the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IT CEPA) in Jakarta on January 24-25.

"As the host (of the meeting), Indonesia stressed the importance of constructive negotiations to discuss crucial issues in six working groups," Director of Bilateral Negotiations of the Trade Ministry Ni Made Ayu Marthini who led the Indonesian delegation to the meeting said in a press statement released on Saturday.

The meeting is one of the steps to accelerate trade negotiations between the two countries. During the third round of the meeting, the two sides completed terms of reference to serve as a guide to holding negotiations in the future.

The meeting is a follow up to the second round of such meeting held in Ankara, Turkey, on May 28-30 last year. At the meeting, the six working groups discussed a wide range of issues related to trade including market access and draft text, customs and trade facilitation (CTF), trade remedies (TR), technical trade barriers (TBT), sanitation and fitosanitation (SPS), and legal agreement,

Marthini said the third round of the talks is one of the forms of the government`s seriousness to enhance economic cooperation with other countries as Indonesia`s trade partners to improve its export performance. The negotiations on CEPA may also serve as a means to meet the trade target of US$10 billion for 2023 that President Joko Widodo set while visiting Turkey in July 2017. (ant)