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Abstention is not a crime: Activists
Jakarta Post - February 10, 2014
Chairman of the Indonesian Civil Society Circle, Ray Rangkuti, said the KPU's plan, which treats abstention as a crime, could be seen as a source of trepidation for the public. "The KPU's statement is a new threat for Indonesian people," he said.
Ray was responding to a statement by KPU chairman Husni Kamil Manik who said that there should be punishment for those who persuade others not to vote in the 2014 elections. Ray said that Legislative Election Law No. 8/2012 did not have any articles explicitly banning abstention.
He said that Husni could have based his statement on articles 292 and 308 of the 2012 law, which stipulates that a person who intentionally persuades others to forgo their voting right or uses violence to obstruct other people from voting could be punished for committing a crime.
"But if you look at the two articles closely, they don't explicitly say that campaigning or persuading someone not to vote is a crime," he said.
In fact, the articles stipulate that campaigners can only be punished if they use violence to encourage abstention or to obstruct the ballot. "First and foremost, abstention is not a crime. Therefore, people should not be punished for not voting," said Ray.
A researcher with election watchdog the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem), Veri Junaidi, said that the KPU had gone too far by threatening to criminalize abstention.
"[It's] because voting is a right, not an obligation," he told The Jakarta Post on Saturday. "Even if someone does not vote [after being persuaded], it could have been the result of [something other than] other people's persuasion," he said.
Veri said that Husni's statement could be seen as a call for the public to refrain from using violence or coercion to force others not to vote. "For example, a boss ordering a subordinate not to vote, or not to giving the opportunity to his or her employees to exercise their voting rights, would then be criminal acts," he said.
According to the Election Supervisory Committee (Bawaslu), the number of abstainers, locally known as golput, is expected to reach 30 million. Most of the abstainers are young people, aged between 17 and 29, who are entitled to vote in the 2014 elections.
For the 2014 general election, the KPU has estimated that there will be between 53 and 60 million young voters. Late last year, Bawaslu said that it would dispatch 1 million volunteers to campaign against absenteeism.
Separately, KPU commissioner Ferry Kurnia Rizkiyansyah said that punishment would be given to those who campaigned for abstention, even those who did not use violence or threats. "Persuasion could be conducted through verbal and non-verbal means," he said.
Ferry said that, in fact, an abstention campaign could be political. "In some ways, a campaign for abstention could even be a political move aimed at convincing people that the election has no meaning," he said.
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