The democratic party, held every five years, will start with the legislative election in February 2024 followed by the presidential and vice-presidential elections and regional head elections in October 2024.
The General Election Commission (KPU), as the organizer, including in Papua, has begun to disseminate information to members of the community, which also includes people with disabilities.
Despite facing limitations in their life, people with disabilities have the same political rights to vote in the election as is guaranteed through Law Number 19 of 2011 on the Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
For the Papua KPU, one of the socialization activities for people with disabilities is building communication with them to take part in the 2024 elections.
For this reason, the local KPU continues to conduct socialization, especially for administrators at the lower levels, to encourage people with disabilities to exercise their right to vote during the General Election. KPU ensures that they will pay special attention to them during the election.
Papua KPU considers that pilot polling stations (TPS) for people with disabilities are needed, but the agency still has to ensure the exact data of people with disabilities in each polling area.
If indeed there are several people with disabilities, then a pilot TPS for them needs to be established. Hence, coordination through meeting with related elements to accommodate the interest of people with disabilities is deemed necessary.
Based on data from the Papua KPU, the number of people with disabilities is very high in Jayapura City. Hence, the agency ensures the presence of several disabled-friendly pilot TPS in that area.
Guarantee of rights
The Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) of Papua Province has conducted socialization activities for the public, since the 2024 General Election stages were rolled out.
This socialization about the election began with targeting women, associations, people with disabilities, and the media, to high school students as first-time voters or millennials.
All activities held by Bawaslu emphasized the importance of awareness in overseeing the election process to run well and be of good quality. The substance of good and quality elections should also be included in the fulfillment of voters’ rights in all stages of the election.
As an institution that oversees the implementation of elections to run according to the rules, Bawaslu is obliged to ensure that Indonesian citizens (WNI), who have the right to vote, are guaranteed by the organizers to cast their votes at the TPS on election day.
Efforts to ensure voting rights began with the process of updating the voter list, which is currently underway. This means that this process is the start to guarantee that everyone’s voting rights are secured and protected.
Once the voters are registered, the process will continue with a campaign to introduce the election candidates to the voters, including pairs of regional head candidates.
Bawaslu must leave no stone unturned in conducting the task to observe each election process to guarantee the fulfillment of all citizens’ right to vote through each of these stages.
In addition, Bawaslu should conduct special supervision during the matching and research (coklit) process since it is the entry point for overseeing an accurate voters’ list.
This is apparent from the recruitment process for the district supervisory committee, which this time took precedence over the district selection committee (PPK) recruitment process by the KPU. This step is taken to avoid potential problems during the coklit process by the voter registration committee, or pantarlih.
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Human resources
Political observer from Cenderawasih University, Yakobus Murafer, said that in order to ensure the voting rights of the disabled can be channeled properly, human resources (HR) with disabilities are needed to accommodate them.
Voter data updating officers (PPDP) in Papua did not yet have the expertise to help people with disabilities, especially to organize voting in elections.
Hence, the KPU and Bawaslu must be able to recruit officers having skills to assist people with disabilities in casting their votes to accommodate them, starting from voter registration until the determination of the election results.
In this way, people with disabilities can fully understand the democratic process and the stages that have been running in their region.
Socialization regarding these stages is very important, especially those related to the preparation of the voter list and updating it to avoid problems in the future.
Problems related to the process of compiling the voter lists usually take time, so the KPU and Bawaslu must proactively provide information widely and openly to all people in Papua.
The provision of human resources for people with disabilities must be prepared properly and correctly by the KPU to accommodate the distribution of voting rights, including with the supporting facilities.
This is also the priority of the KPU, as the organizer, and the Bawaslu, as the supervisor, since people with disabilities have, so far, been considered as a group that is not very important, despite also having the same rights as other citizens.
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