Counting Jakarta expected to finish today
Counting Jakarta expected to finish today
Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPUD) officials expect to
complete the electronic ballot counting for Jakarta on Monday
morning, while the manual counting would probably be ready to be
made public on Wednesday.
"The manual counting is already at the provincial level so it
will probably be finished soon," KPUD chairman Mohamad Taufik
told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.
Taufik also explained that there were no serious difficulties
experienced by the poll commission in processing the data.
However, he acknowledged that the slow process was caused by
the use of separate forms to record data by the polling stations
organizing committees.
Approaching the deadline, about 80 percent of some six million
ballots had been counted as of Sunday at 7 p.m., the seventh day
after the April 5 legislative election.
The number of ballots differed from the number of registered
eligible voters, which reached 6,478,005 as recorded by the
Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) during the registration
period.
The KPUD have finished counting about 4.28 million ballots for
the DPR and DPRD and another 4.17 million ballots for a new body
called the Regional Representatives Council (DPD).
The Prosperous and Justice Party (PKS) and the Democratic
Party held the first and second place with 975,541 votes and
899,752 votes respectively as of Sunday evening for the House of
Representatives (DPR) ballot counting in Jakarta.
Although the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P)
and the Golkar Party ruled nationwide, they only managed to
secure third and fourth places with 576,046 votes and 355,749
votes in the capital.
A similar pattern is also seen in the latest tally result for
the Jakarta City Council (DPRD) on Sunday evening. The PKS and
the Democratic Party secured the first and second place with
886,141 votes and 774,808 votes respectively.
Both parties have significant number of voters compared to the
22 other political parties that contested the general elections,
as the next closest is PDI-P with 517,045 votes.
From the six million votes, the parties are vying for the 75
seats in the DPRD. At present the projected number of seats will
be between 15 and 18 for the Democratic Party and between 17 and
20 for the PKS, followed by the PDI-P with at least 10 seats.
Meanwhile, the result of DPD ballot counting still places
cosmetics queen Mooryati Soedibyo in first place with 435,269
votes, closely followed by former minister Sarwono Kusumaatmadja
with 425,227 votes.
The son of Betawi (native Jakartan) comedian and actor Biem
Triani Benyamin, remains in third place with 335,601 votes. The
fourth place is between Marwan Batubara and Bambang Warih
Koesoema, with 294,646 votes and 276,458 votes respectively.
On Saturday, 21 political parties had demanded the General
Elections Commission (KPU) recount all ballots tallied
electronically, as the parties were not involved in monitoring
the counting process.
Since then, three more political parties have given their
support to the recount, with only the PDI-P, the Golkar Party,
the Democratic Party, and the Crescent and Star Party (PBB)
supporting the electronic vote counting.
The Election Law stipulates that the result of the manual
ballot counting is valid.
Photo & table on Page 8