BRIDGE Goes to Sumatera and Kalimantan

Since the beginning of the Indonesia General Election Commission (KPU) BRIDGE program back in 2009, the venue has never before been in these islands: Sumatera and Kalimantan. Now that the KPU Indonesia, thorough the KPU province is able to host their own BRIDGE training, the time has come for the KPU Sumatera Selatan and KPU Kalimantan Timur to finally have theirs at home.

The training for KPU Sumatera Selatan Province was held on July 13-16, 2011 in Palembang, the capital of the province. The facilitators of the training are Ferry Kurnia Rizkiyansyah of KPU West Java Province, Kelly Mariana of KPU Sumatera Selatan Province, Dahlia Umar of KPU DKI Jakarta Province, and 2 KPU secretariat staff, Erland Evriansyah of KPU central and Muhammad Husni from KPU Kalimantan Selatan.

Similar to any previous Module Training, the very warm nature, highly hospitable, and generally talkative local participants from KPU Sumatera Selatan districts and municipality, added with the equally active participants from other provinces: Sulawesi Utara, Kepulauan Riau, Kalimantan Timur, Jambi, and 1 AEC staff all in all made quite a very supportive learning environment and a very, very, dynamic class!

Chris Morris, the acting AEC Country Director did contribute to the training by presenting how the voter registration is done in Australia, the AEC organization structure, and other AEC related information. The allotted half an hour clearly was not enough, since many other participants were enthusiastically asking Morris a lot of interesting questions! This additional session really shown the comparison between the AEC and the KPU, as well as pointed out some similarities the two EMBs have in common.

KPU and AEC later on welcomed another 2 fully accredited facilitators: Erland Evriansyah and Muhammad Husni, who were accredited by Ferry Kurnia Rizkiyansyah after the evaluation of the Module Training.

As for the training in Kalimantan (Borneo), it was conducted on July 25-28, 2011, in Samarinda city. The facilitators in charge are Udi Prayudi of KPU Bali Province, Abdul Aziz, the National Commissioner of KPU Indonesia, Nusra Asiz of KPU Sulawesi Selatan, Endang Dwi Wahyuni, the proud host of KPU Kalimantan Selatan, and Wahdi Hafizy of KPU central.

The participants, 26 in total are from KPU Kalimantan Selatan Commissioners and secretariat staff, and representatives from other provinces: South Sumatera, Central Sulawesi, and Maluku Province, and 1 AEC staff.

Unlike any other previous training, something unique happened in Samarinda Module Training. Given the legal structure of the KPU, KPU central, or KPU RI is the highest level of the Indonesia KPU. The KPU province therefore is directly under the KPU RI. This entailed that Abdul Aziz, the KPU RI Commissioner is highest in rank of all the KPU facilitators in charge of the training. Nevertheless, given the level of accreditation, Udi Prayudi, the KPU Bali Province Commissioner is the accrediting facilitator in charge as the lead trainer of the Module Training. Fortunately, both facilitators acted professionally, shown by how Prayudi assisted and mentored Aziz throughout the preparation days and during the training days itself, and on how Aziz was keenly learning his part of the modules and excelled in delivering his respected sessions.

Looking at this unique condition, some participants have different comments: “Only in BRIDGE that I would ever see a province commissioner supervising the work of a national commissioner, and further, accredit him should he is considered qualified to be accredited by him.” Another said: “Not until I see it with my own eyes that Ibu Endang, our province commissioner, can actually ask Pak Aziz to help her throughout the sessions, including distributing some papers to the participants that I would ever believe that a commissioner from a province can tell a national commissioner on what to do, in public!”

Such humbleness and a great role model shown by Abdul Aziz and excellent team work effort clearly became the highlight of the Samarinda Module Training. It serves as a great example of how the BRIDGE spirit of togetherness, and positive thinking and attitude can really bridge the gap between the different levels of the KPU. Therefore, not only that the participants can learn more about the election, but they may as well have a media for building a closer and stronger bound and network within the KPU as an institution.

At the end of the training, Udi Prayudi accredits Abdul Aziz and Wahdi Hafizy as fully accredited facilitator.