Ballot papers in Jakarta to be recounted: Djafar

JAKARTA (JP): Millions of ballot papers in the city will be recounted, after the Jakarta Provincial Elections Committee said there were indications of serious violations in the tallying.

The decision was taken on Friday after a reportedly tense meeting of the committee which lasted about four hours. Thirty- two political parties have demanded the poll be repeated in Jakarta.

"Many cases of inconsistencies were found," committee chairman Djafar Badjeber said, adding that final results would be announced on schedule on June 17. "I don't think we can make it," a committee member said, but he added it was better than having inaccurate results.

Errors were found in several subdistrict result reports.

Head of the program division at the provincial committee Muchammad Taufik said all ballot papers should be rechecked.

Committee spokesman Lukman Zaini said it would be up to the committee's program division to decide the rechecking method.

"The program division will decide on whether to recount all the ballot papers in the 10,198 boxes for the House of Representatives (DPR) and another 10,198 boxes for the City Council, or whether to only adjust the documents," Lukman said of the reports from subdistrict, district and mayoralty levels.

There were about 5.07 million registered voters in the city, but the provincial committee has yet to reveal the percentage of those who exercised their voting right and the percentage of votes tallied.

Before the meeting, the Jakarta chapters of 32 political parties released a statement saying they would not sign the official report of the provincial elections committee if doubts persisted, and that the poll should be repeated if the inaccuracies could not be settled.

Golkar, the National Awakening Party (PKB), the United Development Party (PPP), the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) were among those which did not sign the statement. However, a PDI Perjuangan representative said the party would support the possibility of a repeat of the polls.

The ballot boxes and papers, together with other poll equipment, are now being safeguarded at the 43 district polling committees in the city by committee members and security guards.

Djafar said apart from human errors "there could also be vote- rigging attempts".

He said provincial committee members found different ballot counting results in, among other areas, the districts of Cakung in East Jakarta, Pondok Pinang and Kembangan in West Jakarta.

The completed "DA 5" forms in Kembangan district confused provincial committee members. They could not agree on the purpose of the forms which revealed discrepancies in PDI Perjuangan results at the local level as opposed to the subdistrict level.

Discrepancies were also found between tabulation reports of polling place committees with those of their subdistrict poll committees. Committee members also said some polling officials did not follow electoral procedures. Violations included counting sheets not being signed by subdistrict election committee officials or witnesses from political parties.

Taufik said the vote recounting, to be held at district committees, would be held by representatives of provincial and mayoralty election committees, together with members of the district poll committees.

For thousands of officials involved in the ballot recounting, their workload has hardly stopped since the June 7 polls.

Deputy chairman of the provincial committee Ahmad Djubaedi said all subdistrict polling committees were instructed to cease reporting results to the General Elections Committee (KPU), in order to avoid further confusion in the Jakarta results.

Separately chairman of the National Elections Committee Jacob Tobing said the presence of the supervisory committee and witnesses were enough to guarantee vote-rigging would not take place in the recounting process. (ind)