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Election Watchdog Shakes Up Leadership
Camelia Pasandaran | January 07, 2011

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The government’s embattled election watchdog has a new chairman following its underwhelming performance last year in monitoring regional polls.

The Elections Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) was widely blamed for failing to prevent 2010’s dismal rate of 74 percent of 227 total regional elections ending in legal disputes over allegations of polling violations.

The body has since replaced chairman Nur Hidayat Sardini with Bambang Eka Cahya Widodo, former dean of the School of Social and Political Sciences at Muhammadiyah University in Yogyakarta.

However, the new chairman said he would not undo any of the programs his predecessor had set in motion but would instead focus on “increasing the effectiveness of supervisory boards at all levels.”

“We’ll intensify our supervision of regional-level supervisory boards [Panwaslu] to boost their performance,” Bambang said.

Nur Hidayat, who remains a member of the body, said the change of leadership was planned years ago and was not in response to any recent failings.

“Early on in our term, in April 2008, we agreed that there would be two different chairmen during our five-year term,” he said.

“The first half was my turn to lead, and this second half of the term will be Bambang’s.”

Bambang defended his institution’s perceived failings last year, arguing that Bawaslu was only authorized to flag campaign and polling violations and report them to the General Elections Commission (KPU).

The KPU, Bambang continued, was guilty of frequently neglecting Bawaslu’s reports.

“That’s one of the biggest problems that needs to be solved,” he said.

“We’ve already called on the House of Representatives to grant us more power, which we need to police administrative violations during elections.”

The amendment to the 2007 Election Organizers Law has been under deliberation since last year but is mired in debate over board membership regulations.