Australia is to give more than $6 million to Indonesia to help it prepare for and hold its Parliamentary and Presidential elections in the early part of next year. Involving 150 million voters and 585,000 polling stations on 17,000 islands, the Indonesian Presidential election was one of the largest single-day national elections in the world. Minister for Foreign Affairs, Stephen Smith, said the task of conducting the election presented unique logistical challenges. Mr Smith said the funding would be provided by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) and would support the work of the United Nations Development Program, which was coordinating donor assistance for the election.
Funding to help Indonesian democracy
He said the AEC would work with its Indonesian counterpart to train election officials by analysing training needs and developing training manuals. Mr Smith said the funding would help develop Indonesian electoral procedures and administration, train election workers, establish an elections results centre and promote accurate and transparent reporting. He said funding for international partners such as the International Foundation for Electoral Systems and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs would help improve voter registration and awareness of electoral procedures. Mr Smith said the new funding allocation built on the support Australia had shown for democratic elections in Indonesia over the past decade. He said in 1999 Australia provided $15 million in election assistance; in 2004 it provided over $12 million; and since 2005 had given around $7 million to support civil society observation, voter education and voter registration audits for provincial elections, Mr Smith said Australia would provide an estimated $462 million in development assistance to Indonesia in 2008/09. He said significant improvements in the capacity of Indonesian Electoral Agencies had reduced their reliance on international support to run elections, but that the Indonesian Government recognised broader improvements were still required and had requested international assistance in this case. The funding announcement coincided with the visit of Indonesian Ministers to Australia for the Australia-Indonesia Ministerial Forum.
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