Accusations of poll misconduct stream in

Accusations of poll misconduct stream in

JAKARTA (JP): Ballot boxes stolen, the delivery of returns
from villages stopped, observers intimidated, almost 21,000 votes
wasted, a rival party's votes allegedly stolen by Golkar and 100
excess ballot papers discovered, the reports from various
quarters said.

The reports streamed into Jakarta on Tuesday, only two days
ahead of the deadline set for all the 27 provinces to report on
the final ballot count with the National Elections Committee in
Jakarta.

Political parties in some districts stuck to demands for
polling to be repeated in areas, alleging vote-rigging by
government officials favoring the Golkar Party.

In Lampung, representatives of nine political parties demanded
a poll repeat at a polling place in Kotabumi, northern Lampung,
after ballot boxes to be delivered to the district election
committee went missing.

The nine parties were the United Development Party (PPP),
Justice and Unity Party (PKP), Murba Party, National Mandate
Party (PAN), Justice Party (PK), National Awakening Party (PKB),
Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan),
Crescent Star Party (PBB) and Indonesian Nationalist Party.

They also claimed many ballot boxes were not provided with
locks, many ballot papers were without holograms and witnesses
were not given the proper forms.

In the Central Java capital of Semarang, a Provincial
Elections Committee official, Sri Mulyono, reported he had found
100 ballot papers were not accounted for at a polling place in
Karanganyar district.

He said the registered voters numbered only 397 but village
poll committees counted 497 returns. Strangely, he said, all were
considered valid.

The University Network for Free and Fair Elections (Unfrel)
announced on Tuesday it had recorded 464 cases of electoral law
violations in Central Java, one of the largest constituents which
had 5,621 polling places.

Unfrel spokesman Nuki Agya Utama said intimidation and vote
buying was practiced by major parties like Golkar. In Kudus and
Wonogiri, Golkar activists offered between Rp 5,000 and Rp 10,000
to people who would promise to vote for Golkar.

Another poll watchdog, Indonesian Elections Monitoring Network
(Jamppi), noted that 20,987 votes were "missing" in Semarang
because of faulty counting by unprofessional poll workers in many
polling places.

As of Tuesday afternoon, PDI Perjuangan kept the lead in
Central Java with 6.8 million votes, or 42.5 percent, of the
total returns counted.

In Central Sulawesi, Golkar bashing continued on Tuesday with
PDI Perjuangan accusing Golkar of being backed by government
officials and allegedly orchestrating vote-rigging in four
subdistricts in Donggala regency.

In a polling place in Tomoli, Ampibabo subdistrict, Golkar
stole PDI Perjuangan's votes, said Liberty A Sianturi, a PDI
Perjuangan activist who chaired the party's poll watchdog.

"PDI Perjuangan won the election in the village but in the
poll report sent to the subdistrict election committee, PDI
Perjuangan was moved to No. 2 on the list in place of Golkar,"
Sianturi said.

Sianturi said he had filed a report on the various alleged
vote-rigging with the local elections committee.

In the South Sulawesi capital of Ujungpandang, Provincial
Elections Committee officials were enraged by the stoppage of
returns from 17 regency poll offices.

In defense, regency poll officials said they had nothing to
report because elections officials at the subdistrict level were
intolerably slow.

Meanwhile, the Australian Council for Overseas Aid, which
coordinated an independent team of Australian non-government
elections monitors, sounded alarms of human rights violations in
Aceh.

The team was "gravely concerned" at the deteriorating human
rights situation in the weeks and months leading up to the
elections and about the mass exodus of villagers from homes.

""We are disturbed by the fact that approximately half of the
people of Aceh have not voted because a climate of terror has
been produced by rumors of impending military activity, resulting
in a lack of facilities, polling booth personnel and voter
attendance...," the council spokesperson Vanessa Johanson said.

The council also reported that the presence of local and
international observers had been severely curtailed by the
security situation and intimidation in Aceh.

The council recommended the Indonesian government reduce
military presence in Aceh "to an absolute minimum".

"Regular police should be fully responsible for guarding
ballot booths, for crowd control, criminal cases and for other
general duties," Johanson said.(har/38/30/45/pan)