Ruling Golkar looking at biggest win ever<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Preliminary results of yesterday's general
\nelection showed Golkar heading for another landslide victory as
\nit won more than 87 percent of the vote.<\/p>\n
With 6.5 percent of ballots counted by 9:20 p.m., Golkar had
\nwon 7,127,499 of the 8,188,307 votes counted, the General
\nElections Committee announced.<\/p>\n
The United Development Party (PPP), which was expected to
\nmount the most serious challenge to Golkar, had won 893,968 votes
\nwhile the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) was a very distant
\nthird with just 166,840.<\/p>\n
It is not immediately known how many ballots were spoilt or
\nhow many people did not vote.<\/p>\n
In the 1992 election Golkar won 68.11 percent of the vote
\nwhile PPP had 17 percent and PDI 14.9 percent.<\/p>\n
Golkar chief Harmoko expects his party will win 70.02 percent
\nof the vote this year.<\/p>\n
Across the country, 305,219 polling stations were open from 8
\na.m. to 2 p.m. to receive ballot papers from 124,740,987 eligible
\nvoters.<\/p>\n
The first results of ballot counting were announced by
\nMinister of Home Affairs Moch. Yogie SM in a nationwide telecast
\nat 7:45 p.m. from the elections committee's head office in
\nCentral Jakarta.<\/p>\n
The first tally of 2.5 million votes showed that Golkar had a
\nstunning lead of almost 92 percent of the vote.<\/p>\n
A provisional tally of about 90 percent of the vote is
\nexpected to be announced this afternoon.<\/p>\n
The election went smoothly in most of the country, but there
\nwere isolated incidents in some provinces.<\/p>\n
Elections committee officials said they were satisfied with
\nthe proceedings.<\/p>\n
The committee's secretary, Suryatna Subrata, said yesterday
\nevening there had been no worrying cases to report of during the
\nelection.<\/p>\n
\"Well there were some disturbances at a few polling booths in
\na few regions,\" he said. When pressed what he meant by
\n\"disturbances,\" Suryatna vaguely called them \"individual voter
\ndissonance\".<\/p>\n
Minister Yogie said the initial results of the tally were
\ntransmitted to the committee through various communication links
\nincluding telephones, facsimiles and citizen band radio.<\/p>\n
But Golkar's stunning lead has been met by some skepticism.<\/p>\n
Stopping short of an accusation, PPP Secretary General Tosari
\nWijaya said the first announced results differed greatly from his
\nparty's own voting reports.<\/p>\n
He questioned how Yogie in his first announcement could say
\nthat the nationwide result for PPP was only 160,083, when a rough
\ncount for PPP in Surabaya, East Java, puts it at over 251,000.<\/p>\n
Tosari claimed that he had also received 10 to 15 complaints
\nabout the ballot counting.<\/p>\n
Among the complaints were from East Java where ballots were
\nnot counted at the polling station as required, but at district
\noffices.<\/p>\n
Tosari then said he received reports of PPP members being
\nsubjected to physical violence by village and district chiefs in
\nhis party's efforts to monitor the poll counts.<\/p>\n
He said PPP members were not able to monitor the poll booths.<\/p>\n
PDI chairman Soerjadi and other executives were unavailable
\nfor comment as the results were announced yesterday.<\/p>\n
The largest number of votes counted yesterday was in Central
\nJava with more than 2.1 million before midnight. Golkar got 1.6
\nmillion of them while PPP got about 444,000.<\/p>\n
There are 19.6 million eligible voters in Central Java.<\/p>\n
Golkar is expected repeat its sweep of Java which has the
\nhighest concentration of voters.<\/p>\n
West Java has the largest number of eligible voters with 25.4
\nmillion. Yesterday evening only 815,089 votes had been tallied
\nthere of which 728,040 went to Golkar. PPP received 80,023 and
\nPDI limped in with 7,026.<\/p>\n
Results from East Java were still in the earliest stages of
\ncounting with only 224,800 votes. But the Golkar train looked
\nlike sweeping through as it already had almost 195,000 votes.<\/p>\n
Bali, which has just over two million voters, was going
\ntotally Golkar which had 736,574 of the 770,358 votes tallied.<\/p>\n
Eerie<\/p>\n
In Jakarta more than 7.4 million people were eligible to vote.
\nUnder the scrutiny of 25,000 security personnel, Jakartans went
\nto the polls at the 20,000 polling stations throughout the city.<\/p>\n
An eerie calm set about the city as normally traffic clogged
\nstreets were free of congestion. After voting, residents remained
\nindoors.<\/p>\n
Many employees were given half-days while a noticeable number
\nof shops in shopping centers were closed. Public transport was
\nscarcer than usual.<\/p>\n
After the initial ballot casting, public attention in many
\nareas was meek. In South Jakarta, ballot counting was only
\nwitnessed by small crowds, most of whom were assigned as
\nvolunteers to the polling station.<\/p>\n
At polling station 25 for the Kramat Pela subdistrict, located
\nnext to the Blok M Plaza mall, most people choose to wander in
\nand out of the shopping center rather than view the results of
\nthe ballot count.<\/p>\n
A minor incident occurred later yesterday in Kebayoran Lama,
\nSouth Jakarta, when a group of youths donning green paraphenelia
\nof the PPP made a small motorcycle convoy. Police quickly rushed
\nto stop them.<\/p>\n
As of yesterday evening only 211,558 of votes from Jakarta had
\nbeen counted. Golkar got the lion's share with 144,709. PPP
\nreceived 63,721 votes and PDI 3,128.<\/p>\n
During the 1992 elections, Golkar received 54 percent of the
\nvotes while PPP and PDI split the remainder. (team)<\/p>",
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