Kupastuntas.co, Lampung English - The Election Supervisory Board of the Republic of Indonesia noted that there are five provinces in Indonesia with the highest level of vulnerability to money politics.

The Coordinator for Prevention of Community Participation and Public Relations of the RI Bawaslu Lolly Suhenty said the 5 provinces ranked first, North Maluku Province, second place for Lampung, third place for West Java, fourth place for Banten, and fifth place for North Sulawesi.

This was conveyed by Lolly at the launching event for the mapping of electoral vulnerability and the 2024 simultaneous election thematic 'strategic issues of money politics' which took place in Bandung and was broadcast online via the official Bawaslu YouTube, Sunday 13 August 2023.

"This is a follow-up to the 2022 election vulnerability index. We used to issue it to become a big umbrella for risk mitigation for the 2024 election. Then why did the thematic election vulnerability index come out? because the regulations have not changed but the modes are increasingly diverse. For mapping the 2024 election vulnerability, we have found threads red, why does this have to be specific," said Lolly when explaining her explanation quoted on the Bawaslu's official Youtube live.

Loly explained that money politics is 1 of the 5 biggest issues of vulnerability to general elections and provincial level elections.

The 5 issues include the first sanction decisions of the Election Organizer Ethics Council in 27 cases. Second, the claim on the results of the regional election and the election of 26 cases. Third, re-voting 25. Fourth, neutrality of the state civil apparatus 22. Fifth, money politics 22 cases.

"At the Regency/City level, there were 347 cases of neutrality issues for the State Civil Apparatus, 272 cases for the PSU, 271 cases for the Election Organizer Ethics Council's decisions, 266 cases for lawsuits against regional election results. Money politics took 5th place with 256 cases," he said.

Lolly revealed that there are 3 main modes of money politics carried out by perpetrators, namely by direct giving, giving goods, and making promises.

"In direct giving, money is usually distributed in return for voting, or vouchers in the range of IDR 20,000-IDR 200,000 which occurred in the 2019 and 2020 regional elections," he said.

"In the context of giving goods, there is a distribution of religious tools with the condition that you have to provide a photocopy of your KTP, the condition is that you have to choose, even the distribution of lawn mowers," he said again.

Then in the context of giving promises of money/goods during the calm period, promising regional development, promising services to voters.

According to Lolly, there are 4 categories for money politics actors, namely candidates, civil servants, ad hoc organizers, and supporting sympathizers.

"Of course there are more and more modes of giving this money, the difficulty we face is the difficulty of proof and limited handling time. Coupled with the pressure of netizens, especially when it goes viral," he concluded.

Meanwhile, a member of the central election organizers' Honorary Council, Ratna Dewi Pettalolo, said that the issue of money politics was not only faced by participants and voters, but also the issue of direct contact between participants and organizers. So that the problem of money politics is not easy to solve.

"Especially when we identify money politics. This is not just something that is empirical in nature, but intersects with the norms of money politics which have yet to be resolved. In dealing with money politics violations, we cannot do it if there are no rules governing these matters," he said.

This problem, said Ratna, has been discovered since the 2019 election, and advocacy has been carried out to the DPR RI in the hope that the quality of the 2024 election will be better due to better regulations.

"Some of the problems in Law 7 of 2017 as well as Law 10 of 2016 have been corrected. So our job is to implement the rules to work properly. Election supervisors must have strong regulations so they can be held accountable," he said.

According to Ratna, this is an interesting discussion with the weakness of the law, how to ensure that the issue of money politics in 2024 can be handled together and worries do not occur because of a mapping of money politics vulnerabilities being carried out.

"Although we cannot deny that areas with high poverty have high potential for money politics," he concluded. (*)