Election reruns urged in 499 stations

Election reruns urged in 499 stations

Moch. N. Kurniawan and M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post,
Jakarta

A rerun of elections needed to be held in 499 polling stations
nationwide because of electoral law violations and other
irregularities, the Election Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu)
said on Monday.

Committee official Didik Supriyanto said violations found at
those polling stations included unregistered voters casting
votes, voters punching ballot papers twice, polling station
committee members punching ballots, voters forging voting cards
and ballot-counting manipulation.

According to Didik, 105 of the 499 polling stations had
already held new votes as recommended by the committee.

The provinces worst affected were Papua, needing 201 new
elections; followed by East Java, with 68 polling stations; and
Maluku and North Maluku with 31 polling station each.

Only Aceh, Bengkulu, Lampung, West Java, Bali and Central
Kalimantan provinces recorded no violations.

"The KPU still has time to hold new elections until April 25
in these (recommended) polling stations," Didik said.

The KPU had said earlier that April 5 would be the last day of
new elections because of administrative constraints.

It erected a total of 585,218 polling stations across the
country for the April 5 legislative election, participated in by
24 political parties. Over 147 million people registered for the
election but the number of people who actually voted remains
unknown.

Didik said besides recommending new elections Panwaslu had
also ordered vote recounts at 1,855 polling stations, including
673 in East Java and 332 in Riau.

Another Panwaslu member Rozy Munir said while the number of
polling stations that had to hold new elections was small, the
problem could cause further disruptions to the election process.

"The level of problems in some of those polling stations are
serious," he said.

Panwaslu chairman Komaruddin Hidayat had encouraged political
parties to submit evidence of violations at polling stations on
April 5.

He also called on the KPU and law enforcement agencies to
punish those who committed violations during the election.

Nineteen political parties led by former president Abdurrahman
Wahid had earlier called on the KPU to hold a nationwide rerun of
elections. They later withdrew this demand and sought a ballot
recount instead.

Meanwhile, Golkar leader and House Speaker Akbar Tandjung on
Monday called on the KPU to rectify its past mistakes dealing
with voter registrations by requiring the participation of
community leaders in registering voters for the direct
presidential election on July 5.

"To provide more accurate and reliable data for the
presidential election, we expect the KPU to involve heads of
communities and neighborhood units in future voter
registrations," Akbar said in his speech marking the opening of
the House session on Monday.

Akbar said flaws in the voter registration system had caused a
great number of eligible voters to lose their constitutional
rights.

"We deplore the fact many eligible voters were denied from
voting in the legislative election due to the poor performance of
workers employed by the Central Statistics Agency," he said.

However, Akbar said the April 5 legislative election had
proceeded peacefully, despite all the glitches.

"We commend the public for playing an indispensable role in
creating peaceful conditions during the poll," he said.