OBSERVER : KPU SHOULD NOT ACT LIKE IRAN'S POLL ORGANIZER

Surabaya, June 22 (ANTARA) - An international affairs observer at state Airlangga University, Basis Susilo, has advised the General Elections Commission (KPU) not to imitate Iran.

"The problem of the presidential election in Iran arose because the Iranian government or home ministry as an election committee announced the poll results too soon," he told ANTARA here Monday when asked to comment on the situation in Iran.

Basis Susilo, who is dean of Airlangga University's faculty of social and political sciences, said technically the results should have been made known only two or three days later but the Iranian government had done it just several hours after polling, thus creating problems.

"That is not logical. How could the results be made known while polling had finished just several hours before while manual counting had not yet finished. So what has happened there was a mistake made by the government," he said.

He said the Iranian government finally had to face the global impact through internet, facebook, twitter and other online service networks that were worldwide in nature and able to penetrate conventional government barriers.

"Even the conservative stance taken by the government has encouraged people who initially support it to oppose it. It has happened in several parts of that country," he said.

In the Indonesian context what the Iranian government did was similar to what the New Order government had done in the past namely unilaterally announcing the results of the election to curb people's differing views.

"Therefore, I think, the KPU must learn a lesson from what has happened in Iran. The KPU as a election committee must be careful when announcing election results in view of pollster's competition in showing their survey results," he said.

He said it would be difficult for what happened in Iran to occur in Indonesia right now. However if the KPU was not careful it was not impossible that it would also follow what the Iranian government had done namely announcing the results quickly but not logically.

"If that happens, it will create the impression that KPU is not transparent, its performance full of irregularities and abuse of public trust - things that are reasons for the people to protest," he said.

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