By Iman Sjahputra, SH, SpN., L.L.M)*

Legislative election now is  at the phase of votes calculation. Temporary results show that most votes  are for the advantage of Democratic Party which is the political vehicle of President Susilo Bambang Yudoyono(SBY). During the process of votes calculation many matters have been exposed in the Indonesian political affairs., either negative or positive in nature . From positive side, the election process took place safely, due to people participation. Peoples are no longer   be willing to be stirred up by political elite which in principle is not pro poor. People have been tired of economic and social problem that have been hitting the country. Beside that there are also some matters that are of vital concern to the people if not to mention negative effects of the general election. They are political cowards who also make people’s face to wrinkle. Like donation that was retaken from the people due to minus votes after calculation has been made. Or the problem of insane legislative candidates , not to mention legislative candidate who were  collapse because he/she did not expect to be the winner. Administratively, General Election Committee ( KPU) also is not immune from critics. Exchange of votes, slow down of calculation, wrong address votes boxes, damage  election paper and  election paper that have been” marked” prior to election. These problems result in many legal cases filed to Constitutional Court, and also various criminal cases in relation to general election that have to be brought to court. Actually most of the people do not care about those maters  because they are more concern with their economic hard life. We of course can not be apathetic . In a competition it is impossible that all participants will be the champion. General election as a means of democracy must be improved. Win or Lost should  be an ordinary thing, provided it is held democratically , fair and not chaotic in nature. In every competition there will be the winner and loser, therefore it is also normal if there is protest when something gone wrong in  the election process. And even the winner might also give protest, isn’t it ?. Thus it is not impossible that in this election, there will be political party which file complaints in relation to the implementation of the election process. The complaint may be due to suspect of votes sale, manipulation of the date of voters, destruction of vote boxes, and even intention to not give the votes to the right candidates. Thus many efforts have been taken by the election participants to eliminate the result of the election. Some even called for boycott of the presidential election on the 8th of July. Administratively we must acknowledge that this election is worse than that of 2004 election. It seems that this election is lack of mature preparation. Which cause that many peoples could not vote . Strangely, this mater was not seen since the beginning that it caused suspect in the part of political elites that there was real intention to eliminate potential votes from the voters that love certain party. Whats the funniest things were that the voters did not know what and who to be voted. The photos of the candidates on the paper were not known to them, like proverbs saying “ unknown, unloved”, thus it did not attract the voters to chose some one. So we can say that the voters simply “marked’ some one whom they have not known to represent them. This they did simply to avoid they being called as “white group”. Since  the beginning we can say that people did not ask much. What they are more concern with  are  the matter of safety and welfare. Who will become elected as legislative is not so over concerned with them. The image of acting legislative has been inviting many questions as to whether the legislative are worth respected. Many corruption cases involved legislative and have been arrested by Corruption Eradication Committee ( KPK) , which cases were widely published. Are they who are” red handed’ still have face ? What sanction that should be given to those legislative who claim that they fight for  people’s welfare who in fact for heir own interest ? Are they deserved to be elected ? bad image of the Legislature so far have cause apathetic  and antipathy. All their slogan and promises are deemed flatter, gone with the win. At the end people  become unconcern as to what ever the results will be. So what can we do ? the election process    so far was not for people’s welfare. The question then is were  the recruitment of the candidates intentionally to pursue the party’s interest or for the people’s welfare ? can the candidates be depended on in terms of expertise and capabilities ?. We are afraid that the candidates simply bribed to be recruited into a party’s candidate without having the required capabilities, that it is not surprisingly that many people so far have said that irrespective of who the candidates are, provided they give money and dared to support for the party’s financial needs. What then that we can expect from such type of legislative candidates ? Defending people’s interest ? No guarantee. However election has take place. Old pages no longer needed be opened. And who will be the winner ? Lets wait. For sure this presidential election must be seen as the fight for the interest of the nation. We nee3d to note that global crisis also has hit Indonesia. We of course need strong leader to bring this nation of out of the crisis. Presidential election should not cause people to suffer. ,more over due to additional problems like the impact of swine flue; Singapore virus bird flue, which will cause bad impact on our tourism industry. Are we willing to see our country to become chaos due to election ? implementation of a good , fair general election shall be for the interest of the people, it is not for the elites, but for the people.

*) The writer is a lawyer domiciled in Jakarta