Golkar assured of landslide victory<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): With Golkar's election landslide victory already
\nwell assured, attention shifted yesterday to the number of valid
\nvotes as the National Election Committee continued with its
\ncount.<\/p>\n
By 5 p.m. yesterday, 109,891,230 votes had been counted, or
\nabout 88 percent of registered voters.<\/p>\n
Golkar took the lion's share of votes with 74.27 percent, PPP
\naccounted for 22.69 percent and PDI 3.04 percent.<\/p>\n
The government, which had campaigned hard to encourage people
\nto vote in Thursday's election, had traditionally never announced
\nthe turnout rate until much later.<\/p>\n
The number of abstainers and spoiled ballots is often used as
\na rough measure of people's discontent at the political and
\nelection systems. In the 1992 election, 90.91 percent of
\nregistered voters cast ballots.<\/p>\n
It is not immediately clear how many more votes were expected
\nto come in, but the figures for many provinces remained unchanged
\nthroughout most of yesterday, as the committee published the
\nlatest tally of votes every two hours or so.<\/p>\n
Some analysts had predicted a larger rate of abstention,
\nespecially among PDI supporters loyal to Megawati Soekarnoputri,
\nthe ousted leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI).
\nMegawati, who was barred from leading PDI in the election,
\nannounced before election day that she was not going to vote.<\/p>\n
Several provinces have already declared the vote counting
\nover.<\/p>\n
West Java counted 22,797,958 votes, or 89 percent of total
\nregistered voters in the province, Yogyakarta counted 1,740,196
\nvotes, or 83 percent of total registered voters, and West Nusa
\nTenggara counted 1,838,238 votes, or 88 percent of registered
\nvoters, Antara reported.<\/p>\n
Vote counting continued in Jakarta yesterday, which included
\nballots of Indonesians who voted overseas.<\/p>\n
Counting in East Java could not be completed because
\nauthorities were organizing a new election in Sampang and
\nPamekasan, in Madura, where voters turned violent on Friday over
\nallegations of vote rigging. Arrangements were being made to hold
\na new election on Tuesday at 111 polling stations.<\/p>\n
Secretary-general of the General Election Institute, Suryatna
\nSubrata, said yesterday the revote was called by district chiefs
\nof election committees in the two regencies because of security
\ndisturbances, and not because of vote rigging allegations.<\/p>\n
Barring any major surprises, this year's election victory
\nlooks set to become the best for Golkar in the six elections it
\nhas won since 1971. Its previous best record was 73.14 percent in
\n1987.<\/p>\n
PDI officials refrained from commenting yesterday, but the
\ntally of votes represents a big blow to chairman Soerjadi, who
\nfailed to repeat his 1992 feat when he led the party to its best
\never performance by pulling in 14.9 percent of total votes.<\/p>\n
In spite of the leap from 17 percent in 1992 to 23 percent,
\nPPP officials in the region, taking their cue from leaders in
\nJakarta, complained about cheating and vote rigging.<\/p>\n
In Bandung, PPP's West Java chapter said it had strong reasons
\nto believe that some people voted twice at two different polling
\nstations. \"We base our suspicions from reports by official
\nscrutinizers and PPP volunteers,\" chapter spokesman A. Zainaldi
\nZainal Asjikin told Antara.<\/p>\n
The suspicion of vote rigging grew because some polling
\nstations were slow in reporting final vote counts to authorities,
\nhe said, noting that some stations within Bandung filed reports
\nlater than those from outlying towns and villages.<\/p>\n
\"That is rather strange. Why the delay?\" he asked.<\/p>\n
\"Although PPP votes in West Java rose from 16 percent to 26
\npercent this year, these violations are not acceptable,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Similar PPP complaints had been voiced in a number of other
\nprovinces. Party leaders in Jakarta said on Friday they were
\ncontemplating court action and had contacted lawyers.<\/p>\n
Although the National Election Committee has not announced the
\ndistribution of the 425 seats of the House of Representatives, it
\nbecame apparent from provisional results yesterday that PDI's
\npresence in the House will be decimated.<\/p>\n
Based on the percentage of total provisional votes, PDI's
\nseats in the House would be slashed from 56 to between 9 and 13.
\nGolkar is estimated to have won at least 322 seats, and PPP 87.<\/p>\n
Analysts calculated that between six and seven seats were not
\ndistributed because in some provinces the seats could not be
\ndivided into round figures.<\/p>\n
These unclaimed seats would be the subject of negotiations
\nbetween the three contesting parties in the next few days. (emb)<\/p>\n
Table -- Page 2<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/golkar-assured-of-landslide-victory-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }