The enactment of Law No. 7/2017 on General Election 2019 becomes a new challenge for the General Election Commission (KPU) of the Republic of Indonesia (RI). The law was enacted on 21 July 2017, was implemented on 16 August 2017, and could be accessed by public on 21 August 2017. Indeed, a process of General Election 2019 was supposed to begin on 17 August.

In a public lecture on ‘Election Update: Challenges and Issues of Simultaneous Elections 2019’ on Tuesday (10/10) at Building of K.H. Ibrahim E6, Commissioner of the KPU of RI Pramono Ubaid Tanthowi stated that many political parties have not registered yet due to the late accessibility.

“The political parties need much time to prepare the registration of the general election. In fact, the tardiness impacts on judicial review of the verification will take place with the registration of political parties,” he told.

Moreover, another challenge is dealing with the process of the general elections 2019 and regional elections 2018 which happen concurrently. “In the simultaneous general elections 2019, people will receive five ballots and the voting and counting day should be carried on a day so that the number of polling stations has to decrease from 500 to 300. There were 572,752 polling stations, but there are 868,608 polling stations now so that the funds are greater. This is conducted for the sake of the law establishment,” explained Pramono.

He also mentioned that a conflict related to Information System of Political Parties (Sipol), Factual Verification, and Presidential Threshold may emerge. On the other hand, since the simultaneous general elections 2019 aim to elect executives, legislatives, local and national members, issues appear in community will overlap and people will get difficulty in knowing profiles of political parties.

Hence, Pramono appealed to the public for not only focusing on one article of a law but also understanding all of the law to evade misunderstanding and conflicts.