Abdillah-Ramli pair wins Medan election

MEDAN, North Sumatra: The Medan elections commission on Saturday declared the Abdillah-Ramli team winners of the Medan direct mayoral election by a landslide of votes. In the election, Abdillah -- the incumbent mayor -- and Ramli grabbed 489,101 votes or 62.53 percent of total votes, far surpassing their closest competitors, the Maulana-Sigit ticket, who got 37.45 percent of total votes.

With the landslide victory, Abdillah and Ramli will serve Medan municipality for the 2005 to 2010 term.

The victory has earlier been predicted as Abdillah and Ramli had been nominated by eight major parties, including the Golkar Party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle and the National Mandate Party, while competitors Maulana and Sigit were nominated by the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS). -- JP