Final returns expected in one more week

JAKARTA (JP): Townspeople eager to know the final returns will be kept in suspense until June 17.

Chief of the Jakarta Provincial Elections Committee Djafar Badjeber said on Wednesday the announcement date had been set by the General Elections Commission (KPU).

Djafar acknowledged the flow of returns to the KPU was irritatingly slow because of the long line of bureaucratic procedures involved.

Before reaching provincial elections committees, data should first be verified by mayoralty elections committees, district poll committees and subdistrict poll committees.

"The dates for each phase have been set by the KPU. For example, data validation at district elections committees will be on June 10 and validation at the district level will be on June 14," Djafar said.

With all the provinces having the same schedule set by the KPU, he said, it is amazing that some provinces have transmitted data on their returns so soon.

Besides, things can be complicated because the collected data has to be cross-checked at every level.

"Therefore it should be understood that reporting of ballot counting results takes a long time," he said.

Jakarta Provincial Elections Committee officials made news on Tuesday when they questioned the validity of KPU's data. The committee said the KPU announced the data without the endorsement of subdistrict elections committees.

According to initial procedures set by the KPU, results of ballot counting from polling places would be released for further processing only after being endorsed by subdistrict elections committees.

The National Mandate Party (PAN) representative at KPU, Hasballah M. Saad, also expressed surprise at the confusing data collection. He suspected illegal data entry into the KPU computer system.

"We will only rely on data which have been verified by all polling committees," he told The Jakarta Post by phone.

Hasballah said the case showed that the security system of KPU's computerized ballot counting system had weaknesses.

"We will discuss the problem at Thursday's plenary meeting," he said.

He lamented that there were many sources publicizing different data which confused the public.

In a related development, Djafar said district elections committees were asked on Thursday to re-count the votes they had sent the higher-level committee because there were some inconsistencies. (ind)