Amalia Nurma Dewi & Bent Sorensen
Presented at 7th International Graduate Students and Scholars' Conference in Indonesia
4 November 2015

The Violation by KPU of the Public Information Disclosure Act concerning the Blind Citizens in the Presidential Election2014

Amalia Nurma Dewi and Bent Sørensen

Abstract

We need to know our responsibilities and rights, so that we can play our role in society and live meaningful lives. To fully understand our responsibilities and our rights we need information. Information is essential for each component of citizenship or through information, governance distributes power and rights to citizen in order to conduct good governance. It has consequences in transparency - citizen must have knowledge about the governance, it is not just the governance which must have knowledge about the citizen. Furthermore, good governance involves distribution of information for every citizen, not just single collective groups. No groups should be neglected. In Indonesia the General Elections Commission has the responsibility to hold general elections, and it has signed an agreement with The Indonesian Parliamentary Center. The agreement says that KPU will be committed to apply The Public Information Disclosure Act to their services, but on the presidential elections of 2014 six organizations representing the blind community held a conference in Gedung Menggugat Indonesia to focus on the lack of clarity of information and socialization of the blind citizens in relation to the presidential elections. On the conference KPU was accused of discriminating the blind citizen, not giving them sufficient information, and thereby, violating their political rights. In the following we will analyze some weaknesses within The Public Information Disclosure Act itself and the implementation of the act by the KPU, and then, secondly, we will analyze the implementation of the act in relation to the concept of good governance.

Keywords: Information, information policy, The Public Disclosure Act, good governance, and the blind community

            A citizen is a member of a political community, which is defined by a set of rights and obligations. Citizenship therefore represents a relationship between the individual and the state, in which the two are bound together by reciprocal rights and obligations (Heywood, 1994). As a citizen, we need to know our responsibilities and rights, so that we can play our role in society and live a meaningful life. To fully understand our responsibilities and our rights we need information. Information is essential for each component of citizenship: civil, political, social and economic, or we can say that through information, governance distributes power and rights to citizens in order to conduct good governance.^[1] It has consequences in transparency - citizens must have knowledge about the governance, it is not just the governance which must have knowledge about the citizens. Furthermore, good governance involves distribution of information for every citizen, not just single collective groups. Or put the other way around: no groups should be neglected or kept out. An important part of good governance involves the regulation of information between citizens and governance stated in information policies.

An information policy is comprised of laws, regulations, and doctrinal positions - and decision making and practices with society-wide constitutive effects - also involving information creation, processing, flows, access, and use (Breman, 2011). Hence, the scope is comprehensive. Whether the subject under discussion is access to government information, mass media, the census, research funding, or network neutrality, this approach makes it possible to analyze the issue at hand through a common lens. Indeed, it provides a means of identifying information policy issues that may not have been historically evident despite their constitutive impact, such as export controls, the census, and rules for accounting systems (Breman, 2007).

The Public Information Disclosure Act is a part of the Indonesian information policy regulating the creation, processing, flow, access and use of information from the Public Agency to the citizen in order to empower the last mentioned. The act warrants the public agencies must provide information to the citizens of Indonesia. A Public Agency is an executive, legislative, judicative agency or its functions and main duties are related to the organizing of the state (Public Information Disclosure Act, article 1 (3), 2008).

In 2014 the presidential elections were held in Indonesia.  The General Elections Commission (KPU) was in charge of organizing the process of election also informing the citizen of the very process itself - most notably the act of voting. The Public Information Disclosure Act (number 14, 2008) was the overall frame work within which the KPU should inform to the public about the elections).  The KPU had committed them selves to implement The Public Information Disclosure Act starting from the presidential elections in 2014. The Act was - and still is - seen as an instrument in order to conduct good governance. However, the implementation of the Act was met with opposition from the blind community because they were not correctly nor sufficiently informed about the process of voting as a blind citizen.      

KPU (The General Elections Commission) is a public agency, who has the responsibility to hold general elections in Indonesia (http://www.kpu.go.id/index.php) , and has signed an agreement with The Indonesian Parliamentary Center (a non governmental organization who has the function to support the legislative department and also to control the governance performance). The agreement says that KPU will be committed to apply The Public  Information Disclosure Act to their services, however, on the presidential election of 2014 in Bandung, six organizations for blind community -  Ikatan Alumni Wyata Guna (IAWG), DPC Persatuan Tuna Netra Indonesia (Pertuni), DPD Pertuni, DPP Ikatan Tuna Netra Muslim Indonesia (ITMI), DPW ITMI, and PW Persatuan Olahraga Tuna Netra Indonesia (PORTI)  - held a conference in Gedung Indonesia Menggugat to focus on the lack of clarity of information and socialization of the blind citizens in relation to the presidential election (www.Sindonews.com 2014). On the conference KPU was accused of discriminating the blind citizens, giving them incomplete or insufficient information, and thereby, violating their political rights. But the question is, of course, firstly, how did this happen and, secondly, why? Before we will take a look that, we will first, however, briefly mention our theoretical framework and method of analysis.

Theoretical framework and method of analysis

Information is essential for each component of citizenship or we can say that through information, governance distributes power and rights to the citizens - within the civil, political, social and economic areas (cf. Breman 2007) - in order to conduct good governance. Governance concerns decision making and the implementation of these decisions in relation to the citizens. In order to analyze good governance we need to focus on the actors involved in the decision making and the implementation of the decisions whereby we can relate these to the essential characteristics of good governance: Transparency, participation, equity and inclusiveness, as well as accountability (cf. Sheng 2008). Hence, within the framework of information as power and the concept of good governance we will try to make a critical literature analysis of The Public Information Disclosure Act itself and the implementation of the act done by the KPU. However, let us begin by taking a closer look at the context of the presidential election of 2014 concerning the communication or the information given to the blind community by KPU and the reaction of the blind community seen from their conference held in Gedung Menggugat Indonesia (Perdana, 2015)

The events before and during the presidential election of 2014

            Some months before the presidential election of 2014, KPU did publish some information on their website, saying that they will simulate the use of blind templates - so that blind citizens can become independent voters (KPU.go.id). With the blind templates blind citizens can “read” information about the presidential candidates (who is the president candidate number one and who is the president candidate number two etc.) as well as the procedure for the blind citizens when they are giving their vote. However, two weeks before the presidential election, blind citizens in some areas of Indonesia did not receive relevant or sufficient information about the election from KPU. KPU gave information about the election on a website (Muhyiddin, 2015), and the majority of the blind citizens in Indonesia do not have access to the internet^[2]. Hence, no socialization did take place as was said or was promised on the KPU website before the presidential election. Because of this, one week before the election more than two million blind citizens assigned a petition saying that they do not want to use their vote on the presidential election. However, KPU did not give thorough attention to the petition and they did not formulate an official response (http://pemilu.sindonews.com).

            During the presidential election, the blind citizens could not read the information on their voting letter concerning who is the presidential candidate number 1 and who is the presidential candidate number 2, because the voting letter was not formulated in a braile template. However, some of the blind citizens still decided to give their vote, and thereby they had to ask someone to help them giving the vote on the voting letter. The problem was, of course, that the blind citizens could not be sure whether the person helping them was actually voting on the presidential candidate of their choice. Furthermore, some of the people helping the visually impaired with voting did not fill in the C3-form because the KPU did not present sufficient information about the form. C3 is a form that should be filled in by people helping the visually impaired concerning their personal information (like name, address, relation to the blind person etc.), and a statement that they will not misuse^[3] the vote of the blind person (Muhyiddin, 2015).

The other violation of KPU concerns that it did not give all their officers information about the right procedure when helping blind citizens in voting in the presidential election. In some TPUs (tempat pemungutan suara) blind citizens were treated unprofessionally by the officials (http://indonesia-baru.liputan6.com/, 2015). This caused numerous of the blind citizens not to give their vote – approximately more than 2.000.000 people. Hence, they choose not to participate in the presidential election because they felt that they have been treated as second ranked citizens.

            Because KPU did not live up to the Public Information Disclosure Act concerning their services and lacked responding to the petition of the blind citizens, it means that KPU did not meet the rights of the blind citizens to receive information concerning the elections, also bringing the political rights of the blind citizens in real danger.

Why did this problem occur?

            The problem occurred because of two main reasons: the weakness of The Public Information Disclosure Act it self and the inconsistency and lack of good implementation of The Public Disclosure Act by The KPU.

·    The weakness of The Public Information Disclosure Act it self

The Public Information Disclosure Act was indorsed in 2008 by Mahakamah Agung, but The Public Agency did not apply the act before the year 2010. Some weaknesses, however, can be found in the act and reading  article 6  3(e) it says, that The Public Agency can refuse an information request by citizens, if the request concerns information that is not within their own resort and authority or that request concerns information that was not documented yet, even if we can also read in article 13 that every public agency has an obligation to appoint an information management and public documentation officer, which should function to document the activities of The Public Agency and publish information to the public. However, there is no article which exactly states when the public agency must have an information management and public documentation officer. Furthermore, there is no article regulating when The Public Agency should full fill the information request (on article 10 (7); the Public Agency has a maximum of 10 days to inform, whether they will accept/ refuse the request; not stating exactly when they should full fill the request). Furthermore, there is no “serious sanction” for The Public Agency if it does not provide the requested public information – the article 52 states that The Public Agency has to pay five millions Rupiahs for not full filling the request of the information).

When the blind community accused KPU with discrimination - e.g. KPU did not give the blind citizens access to relevant and timely information - at first the KPU answered the critique with saying that the blind citizens must await further information because KPU themselves did not yet have any clear information about how to conduct the presidential election for the blind citizens (KPU (article 6, 3 (e). However, some months later KPU announced that it was not within their budget to inform the blind citizens and that they could not provide them with a special template for voting (http://indonesia-baru.liputan6.com).

The above mentioned weaknesses of the Public Information Disclosure Act make room for The Public Agency to work unprofessionally when trying to implement and apply the act, and can even be seen as “a way of protecting” The Public Agency themselves when they are working with the Act. In short: the weaknesses seem to be based on a bias from the side of public system giving The Public Agency more power, and not enough power to the blind citizen.

Looking at the articles 6 3(e) and 9 (3) we can see why these articles seem to inhibit a professional implementation of the act. Based on article 6 3(e), KPU did not do anything wrong because they did not have the information that was asked for by the blind citizen. And, furthermore, based on article 9 (3) “the obligation to provide and to submit public information is conducted at least every 6 months”, we can see that even two weeks before the presidential election and when, in fact, the presidential election did take place, and blind citizen still had not received the information that they needed from KPU, this was not, however, a violation according to article. But, still, we can say that even though KPU did not violate those articles, they did, in fact, violate the essence of the act itself concerning the guarantee of The Public Agency to provide information to the blind citizen.

Concerning article 3 the purpose of this article is to make good governance possible including participation, transparency, and accountability. In fact, this is the essence of The Information Public Disclosure Act. However, and unfortunately, some articles within this act do not support the purpose, because they stand on the side of the public agency^[4], allowing unprofessional work. Those articles make the act powerless, not endowing The Public Agency with force. Surely, a Public Information Disclosure Act should have its articles very well balanced between the interests of The Public Agency (the governmental side) and the interests of the citizens; e.g. it is important that – seen from the side of The Public Agency – the sole interests of the citizen will not take over; however, balance is here the keyword, so that the main purpose of the act will not loose its essence.

·    The inconsistent implementation of The Public Information Disclosure Act by KPU

Before the presidential election in 2014, KPU had declared to commit them selves to implementing The Public Information Disclosure Act. Hence, KPU signed an agreement with The Indonesian Parliamentary Center thereby marking a new awareness of increasing the quality of public access to their services also guaranteeing the information rights of the citizen.  However, KPU did not live up to this commitment as described in the problem focus above. There lies a complex cause behind this problem.

The idea of committing KPU to The Public Information Disclosure Act just took place on the managerial level. Hence, the act was never fully anchored on the staff level (Anwar, 2015)  on the staff level the idea was not clearly understood and, therefore, the implementation of the act could not go well.

Before the time of the presidential election in 2014 KPU did give information to the blind citizen when they published information on their website about launching a blind template, also emphasizing simulation, and the socialization of the blind citizen. However, at the time of the presidential election this did not take place (http://pemilu.sindonews.com).  

This shows, among other things, that the commitment to implement The Public Information disclosure Act on the staff level was limited to publishing information about certain activities on a website; there was no simulation, nor socialization, due to, it was said, a limited budget, not allowing to give information to the blind citizen. 

If you want to have full text of this article, please contact the author:)

17 jan 2014

tiba-tiba teringat tentang masa kecilku, rasanya baru kemarin aku menggendong tas punggung  menuju TK dibonceng sepeda oleh kakek ku,  kakek akan menggunakan topi koboinya,menungguku pulang di depan masjid desa

rasanya baru kemarin aku terlelap dengan memandang wajah nenek ku yang sedang berkisah tentang sebuah negeri antah berantah...tokoh andalannya adalah kedana-kedini, 2 sampai 4 jam cerita kedana kedini dalam berbagai versi yang ia kisahkan, barulah aku bisa tertidur

dulu, aku hanyalah anak kecil dengan kebahagiaan ringan dan sederhana
tawa riang yang memperlihatkan gigi ompongku terdengar tulus apa adanya
pikiranku hanya tentang pergi ke sekolah, menonton film hanoman, dan bermain dengan kakek dan nenek di rumah sambil menunggu bapak-ibu pulang bekerja

saat aku kecil hal yang paling tidak kusuka adalah malam hari, karena aku harus belajar dan mengaji, ibu akan mengajariku dengan keras...
tiap kali belajar aku selalu meminta nenek untuk duduk di sebelahku, agar jika aku salah mengeja huruf atau menjumlahkan...ibu tidak berani marah, karena nenek selalu membelaku

saat menghafal suratan pendek Al-Qur'an, kakek akan datang dan menemaniku....beliau sungguh hafal banyak surat, baik yang panjang ataupun pendek, katanya kakek pernah berguru ke pondok pesantren kyai tebu ireng..aah kurasa beliau hanya bercanda

setelah belajar, aku akan meminta bapak memberiku novel atau komik terbaru, lalu akan kubacakan keras-keras untuk bapak ibu, kakek dan nenekku...masih kuingat jelas bagaimana mereka menatap dan tersenyum kepadaku,--penuh rasa sayang, sungguh bangga bukan main rasanya tiap kali aku bisa membaca satu kata dengan benar di depan mereka

masa kecilku, adalah masa dimana aku menerima banyak kebahagiaan, dan mampu memberi banyak waktuku untuk mereka

 kini usiaku 24 tahun dan hidup sungguh berubah dengan cepat

tangan kecilku yang dulu selalu menggenggam permen pemberian nenek, kini terlihat kokoh memegang buku-buku tebal

debaran kegembiraan saat melihat kantong celana kakek yang dipenuhi oleh apel, kini tak lagi berdebar sesederhana itu

pemikiranku lebih kompleks dari sekedar film hanoman atau mendengarkan kisah negeri antah berantah

di usiaku yang ke 24
kuhabiskan waktu dengan berpikir tentang impian dan idealisme tentang hidup
kusibukkan waktuku dengan deretan buku-buku dengan sederet nama filsuf mendunia yang berakhir gila
aku berpikir dan terus  berpikir, aku bergerak dan terus  bergerak.....aku , aku, aku,
aku yang sibuk, aku yang produktif, aku yang aktif , aku yang dinamis... aku... aku... aku..
aku adalah pusat duniaku

aku berusaha keras untuk segala hal dalam hidupku, tanpa satu pun ingin kulewatkan

sampai kemarin,

saat ku genggam tangan kakek ku yang gemetar menuju rumah sakit
tatapan matanya yang redup dan ketakutan
tubuhnya yang mengecil
pikirannya yang melemah...
yang dengan lemah berkata, untung kamu libur li..

beliau yang menghabiskan banyak waktu saat aku kecil , dan kini aku hanya mampu memberikannya waktu hanya saat aku libur? ironis

sampai kemarin,
saat aku tunggui nenek ku yang terbaring lemah
yang masih mencoba tersenyum melihatku datang
yang memintaku agar  menjaga dirinya
dengan suara lemah tanpa daya

nenek yang menjagaku seperti ibuku, mengapa aku tak sanggup menjaganya seperti beliau menjagaku sewaktu aku kecil?


diriku...yang selalu tentangku,

dimanakah kau kehilangan hati yang sanggup mengasihi keluarga seperti masa kecilmu?
dimanakah kebahagiaan sederhana tentang totalitas bersama keluarga?
dimana kau, saat keluarga merindukanmu?


diriku..yang selalu tentangku

apa guna kau membaca beratus halaman tentang humanisme,
menghabiskan berpuluh jam untuk mengkonsepkan tentang idealisme kehidupan
jika kau kehilangan makna di depan manusia yang diberkati hati dengan kasih sayang, yang kau sebut keluarga?

diriku...yang selalu tentangku
adakah engkau hanya sebentuk pemikiran kosong yang beromong kosong?

:)

You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She’s not perfect – you aren’t either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break – her heart. So don’t hurt her, don’t change her, don’t analyze and don’t expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she’s not there.
#Bob Marley

#1

behind my cheerful, ..
will you see there is hard night when im strugling with my thoughts, my fearful, my life..and i try to trough out likes theres nothing happend
will you see that i always try to become a hero for my damn life?
will you see that my sadness is the biggest reason for me to smile?

will you see me, like who iam ?

Ironi Demokrasi (just in my opinion)

demokrasi adalah suatu sistem pemerintahan  dari rakyat,oleh rakyat, dan untuk rakyat.
Selama ini sistem demokrasi selalu dielu2kan, diperjuangkan, dijunjung tinggi di berbagai negara...tapi apakah benar demokrasi adalah sistem pemerintahan yang terbaik?
menurut opini saya yang sungguh tidak jelas ke validitasannya..demokrasi akan menjadi semacam lelucon menyakitkan jika ia diterapkan di negara yang masyarakatnya kejam...

Demokrasi adalah sistem pemerintahan yang menjunjung tinggi rakyat, kekuasaan terbesar ada pada rakyatnya...bahkan ada salah satu pendapat yang menyatakan bahwa dalam sebuah negara demokrasi suara rakyat adalah suara Tuhan?.... wah..terlihat bijak sekali bukan si demokrasi ini?

tapi dalam pemikiran saya ada hal yang sangat mengganjal...

coba anda bayangkan, misalkan ada sebuah negara besar dan kuat bernama "aku kuat" yang menerapkan sistem pemerintahan maha bijak ini.... suatu ketika negara "aku kuat" berselisih dengan negara tetangga.  yang bernama"aku ga kuat" adapun penyebab permasalahan ini sesungguhnya hanya permasalahan yang sangat sepele. Karena negara aku kuat adalah sebuah negara demokrasi, maka untuk menyelesaikan permasalahan tersebut mereka mengadakan voting.

Dari hasil voting yang diikuti seluruh warga negara aku kuat, diperoleh suatu keputusan bulat bahwa pemerintah negara aku kuat harus segera menjatuhkan bom nuklir di negara aku ga kuat untuk menyelesaikan permasalahan tersebut. lalu karena negara aku kuat adalah sebuah negara yang menjunjung tinggi asas demokrasi yang sungguh sangat mulia itu,  maka keputusan tersebut segera dilaksanakan.
esok paginya,  negara aku ga kuat hancur porak-poranda akibat bom nuklir..aku ga kuat, adalah salah satu korban dari suatu sistem yang sungguh luar biasa mulia dan dijunjung tinggi bernama-demokrasi.

see?jika kekuasaan tertinggi ada pada rakyat yang kejam masihkah demokrasi menjadi sistem yang penuh dengan kebijakan?masih pantaskah suara dari rakyat2 yang kejam di negara tersebut disamakan dengan suara Tuhan? Tuhan mana yang akan tega berbuat sekeji itu....masihkah demokrasi dibutuhkan jika ia sama tak mampunya dengan sistem pemerintahan yang lain?

aku tidak benar2 tau, ini hanya sebuah opini ngawur yg dibuat tidak pake serius... sambil ngemil kacang rebus :D

Balada gagal pdkt

aku pasif... cintamu kelewat elusif
kalo mau aktif, silahkan ambil inisiatif
bukannya sarkatis,
aku realistis
karena cinta ga cuma butuh gombalan bombastis

wahai mahluk berkumis
Menurutmu aku dramatis?
wanita mana yang mau laki-laki sadis
pdkt disana-sini dan mengumbar janji manis

kau janjikan padaku hubungan romantis
nyatanya, hanya bualan kelewat najis
yang membuat perasaan jadi dilematis

ahh... ingin aku berbuat mistis
pergi ke dukun dan menggunakan kekuatan magis
agar kau didatangi jin setan ataupun iblis
yang membuatmu menangis sampai pipis

tapi nyatanya aku hanya bisa diam dan tersenyum miris
meratapi kisah.....,yang berakhir dengan tragis

Tuhan dan eksistensi -Nya

*for moeslem

dulu aku pernah berfikir bahwa agama apa pun yang kamu peluk, doa apapun yang kau panjatkan, bagaimana pun caramu beribadah semua akan bermuara pada satu Tuhan yang sama... But it's totally false,

jika benar Tuhan semua agama itu sama bagaimana mungkin Dia mengajarkan agama dan cara peribadatan yang berbeda, keyakinan yang saling bertentangan, dan menjelma dalam berbagai wujud yang berbeda?

setiap agama mempunyai Tuhan yang berbeda,... tetapi hanya ada satu Tuhan dengan satu agama yang benar adanya. Alloh dan islam adalah agama yang ku percayai kebenarannya ..

Alloh dalam islam berbeda dengan Tuhan dalam agama lainnya,...
dalam agama lain, Tuhan digambarkan dalam beragam wujud.. ada yang menggambarkannya dalam patung, lukisan, pohon, matahari, angin, hewan,dll. semua "wujud" Tuhan tersebut terlalu mengacu pada bentuk material yang mudah dibayangkan oleh akal, hal tersebut menyebabkan eksistensi Tuhan menjadi dangkal dan mudah terjangkau oleh manusia.

lain halnya dengan Allah dalam islam...
saat aku beribadah aku tidak menyembah Allah dalam wujud, simbol, atau bentuk apapun yang diciptakan oleh manusia..Tapi justru disitulah letak kesakralan dan kekudusan Allah. Allah dalam islam bukanlah Tuhan yang memiliki eksistensi terbatas, yang wujudnya  bisa diciptakan dan digandakan dengan begitu mudah oleh tangan manusia.. Allah  dalam islam adalah Allah yang mempunyai eksistensi tanpa batas, ke Esa an yang mutlak hingga tak ada satupun akal dan tangan manusia yang mampu menggambarkannya.
Dia tidak pernah berujud,.. tak sanggup diujudkan... tak pernah dilihat...tak sanggup dilihat....

Eksistensinya nyata walau tak ada ujud nyata...

eksistensinya nyata walau tak pernah tertangkap mata

"ketiadaan ujudnya" adalah bukti kesakralan dan ke Agungan Nya:)