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)