Al-Zaytun bars election officials

Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Bandung

The West Java General Elections Commission (KPUD) may fail to hold this month's presidential poll runoff at Al-Zaytun as the controversial Islamic boarding school had refused officials permission to reregister voters around the complex.

KPUD member Radhar Tri Baskoro said on Tuesday that the school, which is located in Indramayu regency, had refused to allow local poll officials to verify the number of voters by the deadline of Aug. 31, 2004.

The election commission, meanwhile, said it was sticking with its earlier data that the number of registered voters was only 11,565, he added.

"The Al-Zaytun administrators claim that the procedures used in counting the number of voters for the first round of the presidential election were already correct. Therefore, they have refused to allow us to verify the number of voters," Radhar told journalists in Bandung, West Java.

He said that Al-Zaytun director A.S. Panji Gumilang insisted on asking the Indramayu poll commission to prepare polling stations and ballot papers according to the number of people who were recorded as casting votes at the school during the July 5 presidential election.

A total of 24,818 people were recorded as casting their ballots at the school, where 83 polling stations had been set up, during the first round of the election. However, the number of registered voters there was only slightly more than 11,000.

Almost all the 24,818 voters cast their ballots for presidential candidate Gen. (ret) Wiranto, who failed to qualify for the Sept. 20, 2004, election runoff.

The high turnout sparked accusations that military officers had transported the additional voters to Al-Zaytun to support Wiranto, a former chief security minister who came third in the July 5 election.

The central General Elections Commission (KPU) later annulled the results of the first round of the presidential election at Al-Zaytun, and held a revote there on July 25.

The revote turned out to be a farce as none of the Al-Zaytun voters showed up to cast their ballots at the 39 polling stations established outside the school complex at Mekarjaya village, Gantar district.

The failure was blamed by election supervisory committee officials on Al-Zaytun leaders, who rejected the revote and allegedly prevented voters there from casting their ballotsright.

Radhar said that despite a possible boycott by the controversial school, the KPUD would set up 39 polling stations outside the complex in order to allow eligible voters to cast their ballots in the election runoff.

"We will give the 11,565 registered voters the chance to vote," he said.

He said that his office had asked the Indramayu Police to provide security during the Sept. 20 runoff at Al-Zaytun.

The immensely wealthy school sparked public controversy previously after some number parents alleged that it taught their children a "deviant" form of Islam. The school flatly denied the allegations.

Established in 1996, mystery still surrounds the source of the school's huge wealths, with accusations rife that Panji Gumilang is a former activist with the now-defunct Indonesian Islamic State (NII) movement. Panji denies the allegations.