JAKARTA (Yosefardi) – The Babinsa, non-commissioned military officers assigned to serve the citizens at the villages, have been deployed to influence voters to vote Prabowo Subianto and his running mate Hatta Rajasa, Kompas.com reported.
One of residents in Central Jakarta told Kompas that he was visited by one of the Babinsa.
That member of Babinsa said he is tasked by his office to re-entry the voters data for the July 9 presidential election.
According to the citizen, that Babinsa member asked his political preference and urged him to vote for Prabowo-Hatta.
That citizen then opted to get confirmation from Koramil (the military command at sub-district level) about the office of Babinsa member and was surprised of finding a recapitulation of voters including Babinsa and Koramil’s political preferences.
The recapitulation of voters show that some 90% of voters prefer to vote for Prabowo-Hatta, while the rest 10% of voters opt to vote for Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and Jusuf Kalla.
In a different location, Ahmad Basarah, Deputy Secretary General of PDI-P, launched his protest over Babinsa’s involvement on influencing the voters.
Basarah firmly urged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) to soon follow up the report as SBY has recently demanded the military and police officers to be neutral on the presidential election. (haryantos@yosefardi.biz)