Senior officer gets marching order over Al-Zaytun affair<\/p>\n
Tiarma Siboro and Nana Rukmana, Jakarta\/Indramayu<\/p>\n
A middle-ranking military officer was discharged on Wednesday
\nfor involvement in the illegal mobilization of voters to the
\nadvantage of candidate Gen.(ret) Wiranto.<\/p>\n
Lt. Col. E was said to have been involved in the deployment of
\n21 military vehicles carrying thousands of civilians to the
\nAl-Zaytun Islamic boarding school in Indramayu regency, West Java
\non Monday.<\/p>\n
The decision to discharge the officer was taken immediately
\nafter the West Java Election Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu)
\ndiscovered an unusually high number of voters had come to cast
\ntheir ballots on the school grounds -- almost 25,000 compared to
\n11,000 in the April legislative election.<\/p>\n
It was not clear whether the local election committees had
\naccepted additional voters or whether the voters had cast their
\nvotes more than once. Based on regulations each polling station
\ncan accommodate a maximum of 300 registered voters.<\/p>\n
The Indonesian Military (TNI) headquarters also imposed
\nadministrative sanctions on 20 civil servants working at the
\nheadquarters for having used the vehicles for business purposes.<\/p>\n
"TNI headquarters regrets the incident because it happened
\namid military efforts to remain neutral in the election. The use
\nof the vehicles also violates military regulations," the TNI said
\nin a statement on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
"But what we regret most is that the vehicles were used to
\nmobilize people to vote at Al-Zaytun, for a certain presidential
\ncandidate."<\/p>\n
Gen. (ret) Wiranto and Solahuddin Wahid, the ticket from the
\nGolkar Party, garnered a total of 24,794 votes in the polling
\nstations located in Al-Zaytun.<\/p>\n
According to the statement, a man named Emut Muhtar, called a
\ncivil servant named Isna and asked whether he could rent 21
\nvehicles to transport local residents to the Islamic school
\ncomplex to participate in a prayer gathering.<\/p>\n
Emut paid Rp 940,000 (US$94,949) for each bus and Isna, along
\nwith 20 other civil servants provided 21 buses that drove the
\npassengers to the school on July 4.<\/p>\n
The buses picked up passengers from three locations in South
\nJakarta and dropped them at Al-Zaytun. The drivers returned to
\nthe school complex late on July 5 to transport the passengers
\nback to Jakarta.<\/p>\n
"The TNI has deployed a team nationwide to monitor the
\nneutrality of soldiers during the elections and to record any
\nviolations of the TNI chief's instruction," said the statement.<\/p>\n
It referred to an earlier instruction issued by TNI Chief Gen.
\nEndriartono Sutarto.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, 13 journalists complained to the police after being
\nexpelled by Al-Zaytun executive Abdul Halim.<\/p>\n
"Al-Zaytun officials invited us to attend a press conference
\non the issue. They were initially polite, but inspected us one by
\none before we entered the complex. Then suddenly Abdul Halim
\nasked us to leave without a valid reason," the journalists said
\nin their report.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/senior-officer-gets-marching-order-over-al-zaytun-affair-1447893297",
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