Committee officials face jail threat over poll veto

Committee officials face jail threat over poll veto

UJUNGPANDANG, South Sulawesi (JP): Four regency elections
committee chairmen in this province were threatened with
imprisonment on Wednesday for refusing to endorse poll results in
their areas.

Deputy secretary of the Provincial Elections Committee Haswan
said the committee chairmen from Pangkep, Sidrap, Janeponto and
Takalar regencies could face three-month prison terms or Rp 10
million (US1,450) fines for not endorsing the results.

He said their "stubbornness to reject the polls" could be
punishable under the General Elections Law.

"They could be categorized as trying to sabotage the general
election. To make things worse, their refusal would prevent their
regencies from installing their new legislators," Haswan said.

It was the second instance of polling committee members being
threatened with legal action for not validating the ballot
results. On Tuesday the East Java elections supervisory committee
threatened chapter leaders of 23 small parties with jail
sentences of 10 years if they went ahead with their plan to
reject the polls.

Haswan said the four heads of regency elections committees had
refused to endorse the final tallies unless reports of elections
law violations were settled.

Head of the provincial supervisory committee Abbas Said said
he had reprimanded the regency elections committees for holding
up the tabulation process.

"If they fail to submit the final tallies before the July 7
deadline, we will ignore the four regencies when we send the poll
results from the province to Jakarta," Abbas said.

The South Sulawesi elections committee agreed on Wednesday to
send two teams to verify reports of elections violations across
the province. One team is led by Yunus Tekeng and has six
members, while the other is headed by D'jas Langga with 14
members.

Responding to the row, Sulawesi military commander Maj. Gen.
Suaidi Marasabessy called on all parties to maintain their common
sense and avoid attempts to disrupt the poll process.

"We should resort to the law to settle all matters. Never do
something that will sacrifice the public's interests," Suaidi
told reporters on Wednesday.

South Sulawesi is not the only province that has failed to
submit poll results to the General Elections Commission (KPU) on
time.

In Central Sulawesi, the vote tabulation is still waiting on
final results from Donggala regency. The regency has so far
counted votes in only 10 of 18 subdistricts.

In spite of complaints from some parties of unsettled
violations, Provincial Elections Committee chairman Basir Nurdin
insisted that the count should go ahead. He promised to channel
the complaints to local poll-monitoring committees.

The West Nusa Tenggara elections committee is also waiting for
final results from Bima, Dompu and East Lombok regencies. North
Sumatra, meanwhile, needs a few more days to complete the vote
tabulation because Dairi regency has not submitted its tally.

The elections committee in Bima refused on Wednesday to
endorse the election results because the regency's official poll
watchdog had reported evidence of violations. The alleged
offenses included intervention by some elections committee
members in the vote counting at a polling station in Bolo
subdistrict.

An elections committee spokesman, Umar Sirad, said he believed
the province could produce a final vote tally by June 25.

Less than 10 provinces had submitted complete poll results to
the KPU as of Tuesday.

West Java has almost wrapped up its count, with a complete
tally for the province still waiting on Jatiuwung, a subdistrict
of Tangerang, to repeat its ballot count on June 24.

The Tangerang elections committee upheld on Wednesday demands
to repeat the count following the discovery that Golkar had
managed to add 10,000 votes to an earlier tally of 27,000.

In West Sumatra, another province which has submitted a
complete vote count, the Independent Election Monitoring
Committee (KIPP) demanded that the provincial elections
supervisory committee be disbanded for failing to achieve free
and fair elections.

KIPP's provincial secretary-general, Akhmad Khoiruddin,
criticized on Wednesday the official poll watchdog for its lack
of initiative in coping with reports of election law violations.
(27/28/30/38/40/41/49/amd)