After Al-Zaytun fiasco, KPU orders repeat balloting in Tawau

M. Taufiqurrahman and Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta

The General Elections Commission has decided to hold a revote at a polling station for Indonesian expatriates in the East Malaysian town of Tawau after the Election Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu) filed a complaint over allegations of vote rigging there.

KPU deputy chairman Ramlan Surbakti confirmed on Friday that the vote in Tawau had indeed been rigged in favor of presidential candidate Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his running mate Jusuf Kalla.

"As we have ruled in the Al-Zaytun case, we have decided that a repeat ballot must take place in Tawau. And all electoral processes must be completed before July 25," he told reporters here.

Earlier on Thursday, the commission also decided to hold a revote at 83 polling stations located inside the grounds of the Al-Zaytun Islamic boarding school in Indramayu regency, West Java.

The commission finally accepted that over 13,000 votes that were cast at the Islamic school were invalid.

Ramlan said that the KPU general secretariat was readying election materials for the repeat ballots.

Panwaslu has filed complaints with the police over alleged violations of election regulations by a number of members of the polling station committee in Tawau.

The official supervisory committee alleged that polling station committee members, some of whom were liaison officers, punched some 8,000 ballots in favor of the Susilo-Kalla ticket.

In response to the complaint, the police are expected to dispatch a team to Tawau to see if there is sufficient evidence to launch an investigation.

The police have also said that officers would be sent to provide protection for local Panwaslu members, who have reportedly been threatened.

In a related development, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that none of its staff in the Consulate General in Kinabalu, East Malaysia, were involved in the alleged vote-rigging at the polling station.

He said that a team set up by the Consulate General had held its own investigation and found no indications that any of its staff were involved in illegally perforating the ballot papers.

"We don't have a Consulate General in Tawau and there are no personnel from our ministry residing there," Marty Natalegawa, the ministry's spokesman, told a press briefing here.

He said there was only a liaison office in Tawau, which was set up merely to handle immigration matters.

"But again, there are no personnel from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs assigned to the office," he said.

Marty said that a team consisting of officers from the Indonesian Consulate General in Kinabalu and members of the National Police was now conducting an investigation into the case.