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Election
campaigning: A
human rights perspective
Harison Citrawan, The
Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Election Watch | Wed, March 19 2014, 8:00 AM
Election Watch News
In the next several weeks,
our public sphere will be filled with news covering the election campaigns of
candidates competing for seats in local and national legislative councils.
As part of the general
election process, the direct election campaign arguably plays a significant
role in shaping people’s perceptions and to a certain extent their voting
behavior.
Considering such a role, the law governs a rather restrictive policy to delimit
a campaign’s content and method.
An election campaign is basically a communicative activity. There must be a
certain message to be delivered intentionally by the campaigners as
communicators, to the people as an audience. Under the 2012 Elections Law, the
election campaign is defined as an activity by the contestant to convince the
voters through conveying her/his vision, mission and program.
Furthermore, Article 77 of
the law says general election campaigning ought to be considered a part of the
public’s political education and should be conducted in a responsible manner.
This is to say that every political campaign during a general election should
be considered as not exclusively a contest for political powers to conserve or
to compete for the chair, but also as a reflection of a politically functioning
autonomous public sphere. As a result, political campaigns during the general
election ought to be constructed within the ambit of protecting people’s right
to take part in public affairs.
Nevertheless, based on qualitative research conducted by the Human Rights
Research and Development Agency about political campaigns, a lack of
comprehension regarding human rights values during the election campaign by
campaigners and general election committees, both the Election Supervisory
Committee (Bawaslu) and the General Elections Commission (KPU), may cause human
rights violations during an election campaign, hence failing to protect
people’s right to effectively take part in public affairs (Balitbangham,
2012).
As a consequence of this, there has to be an assurance these parties will adopt
human rights values in making policies and decisions.
Based on a human rights standpoint, the interrelatedness of election campaigns
and the right to take part in public affairs could be enshrined, as the Human
Rights Committee of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
comments, during election campaigns: “Voters should be able to form opinions
independently, free of violence or the threat of violence, compulsion,
inducement or manipulative interference of any kind.”
From such a wording, it can be concluded that candidates are prohibited from
using any kind of “power” during the election campaign, whether authorized or
not, that may incur an unjustified interference to people’s freedom to
choose.
At this point, we must highlight the prevalence of any type of political
oppression against minorities and vulnerable groups during the election
campaign.
Subsequently, as the right to freedom of thought and information is an
essential element of election campaigns, the Human Rights Committee argues
that, “The free communication of information and ideas about public and
political issues between citizens, candidates and elected representatives is
essential. This implies a free press and other media being able to comment on
public issues without censorship or restraint and to inform public
opinion.”
In practice, the committee
added the freedom of political activities — including an election
campaign — requires the full enjoyment of and respect for the right to “engage
in political activity individually or through political parties and other
organizations, to debate public affairs, to hold peaceful demonstrations and
meetings, to criticize and oppose, to publish political material, to campaign
for elections and to advertise political ideas”.
As we have drawn the nexus between election campaigns and other fundamental
freedoms, the practice of campaigning by legislative candidates (or their
campaign teams) ought be conducted within the ambit of human rights.
Arguably, the persuasive
nature of election campaigns shall not obstruct the aforementioned principles
acknowledged in human rights law.
To sum up, a good election
campaign shall bring good quality voters. By placing election campaigns
as a form of political education under the human rights framework, the people,
on the other hand, may consider this as a part of their rights, which can make
them become politically conscious.
From now on, the people must weigh the quality of legislative candidates during
the election campaign period from the standpoint of their right to take part in
public affairs.
Given a significant role of political parties during election time, they must
act as “duty bearers” in terms of fulfilling the public’s right to political
education.
This election campaign period
should be seized by every contestant and political party.
The writer works at the Human Rights Research and Development
Agency under the Law and Human Rights Ministry. The views expressed are
personal.
