Cash rewards given to poll committee

JAKARTA (JP): While most of its counterparts are still debating poll results in their areas, the North Sulawesi elections committee has seen its hard work pay off.

The North Sulawesi administration has awarded each of the 44 provincial poll committee members Rp 7 million (US$1,040) to encourage them to bring a speedy end to deliberations over reports of violations.

Committee chairman F. Sumampow and deputy Abid Takalamingan denied on Thursday the "honorary awards" were intended to encourage the elections committee to ignore demands to repeat the polls in some areas.

"The money has been handed over personally to all committee members, but it does not stop us from gathering evidence of violations and cheating," Sumampouw told Antara.

He said each recipient signed an invoice which was stamped neither by their respective parties nor the committee.

North Sulawesi is one of eight provinces under the scrutiny of the official Elections Supervisory Committee, which has recommended that repeat ballots be held in places where violations were found, particularly in Bitung, Bolaang Mongondow and Gorontalo regencies.

The recommendation was issued following reports that many voters in the three regencies were threatened and intimidated during the polls, that poll results in several subdistricts were manipulated and that an executive of the ruling Golkar party, A.A. Baramuli, tried to buy votes.

An employee at the Provincial Elections Committee office, who asked for anonymity, criticized the unexpected gifts, saying they would tarnish the image of the committee and the administration.

In Central Java and East Nusa Tenggara, demands for polls to be repeated have increased after violations, blamed on Golkar and the bureaucracy, were found.

The Central Java elections committee upheld a recommendation from the Semarang regency committee that balloting be reheld in four polling stations in Tukang village following reports of vote-rigging by Golkar. But committee chairman Hadi Pranoto said the final say to hold the ballot again would rest with the National Elections Committee (PPI).

Some 500 people, comprising activists from parties, non- governmental organizations, poll observers and villagers, rallied at the Semarang regency elections committee to demand poll reruns in four villages.

In Kupang, the East Nusa Tenggara elections supervisory committee ordered polls be repeated in five polling stations in Alor regency after finding evidence that a number of civil servants and bureaucrats intervened in the voting process.

The committee's deputy chairman, Yusuf Kuahaty, said he was waiting for a green light from PPI to rehold the polls in Alor.

An investigation team led by Yusuf found that village officials denied access to a polling station in Merdeka village to witnesses from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle and the Christian Nationalist Party.

Yusuf said the province's official poll watchdog had also sent teams to investigate reports of violations in North Central and South Central Timor regencies.

An investigative team of the national Elections Supervisory Committee, led by Ramlan Surbakti, visited Padang, the capital of West Sumatra, on Thursday to collect evidence of violations that led 15 parties to reject the polls and demand that Golkar be disqualified.

"I saw them myself commit foul play," Suni Party chapter chairwoman Harti Amran told the team amid her sobs. She was referring to Golkar.

Responding to mounting demands for poll reruns, the University Network for Free and Fair Elections (Unfrel) suggested the General Elections Commission (KPU) be strict in selecting which appeals would be approved.

It recommended that polls be repeated only in places where substantial violations took place, and that independent poll watchdogs be involved in the repeat ballots.

In Medan, a group of student and youth activists rallied at the North Sumatra elections committee office to reject the polls. The "Total Reform Front" said the general election was illegitimate because it was mandated in the General Session of the People's Consultative Assembly. At least 13 students and residents were killed when security forces opened fire on a mass rally protesting last November's General Session. (28/39/40/har/amd)