First direct regional polls 'proceeded well'

First direct regional polls 'proceeded well'

Rusman and A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Kutai Kartanegara

The landmark election in East Kalimantan generally ran well on
Wednesday, a good sign for the rest of the first direct regional
polls that will be held in over 200 areas across the country.

"The amount of violence, intimidation and poll fraud was
insignificant, showing that the election proceeded well and
peacefully," said coordinator of independent Pokja 30 Election
Monitoring Group, Kahar Al Bahri, during a press conference in
Tenggarong, the capital of Kutai Kartanegara regency.

He added that efforts to commit fraud were found in 3.66
percent of the 200 polling stations in the regency.

The monitoring groups said that in general, poll committees
had understood election procedures and that the elections had
been prepared and handled in transparent way.

"A total of 99.48 percent of election monitoring members
reported that the voting and vote counting were just and fair,"
said Kahar, who led 223 election monitoring volunteers deployed
at the polling stations across the regency.

Election observers and officials have however pointed to the
lack of preparedness among election monitoring bodies across the
country. Former members of the now defunct Election Supervisory
Committee have suggested that the direct elections in some
regions be delayed due to the absence of official poll observers.

The U.S.-based National Democratic Institute (NDI), in
cooperation with the Pokja 30, also conducted a "quick count"
that showed that the Syaukani-Samsuri Aspar team, nominated by
the Golkar Party, won the election with 60.92 percent of the
vote.

They were followed by the Aji Sofyan Alex-Muhammad Irkham
team, nominated by the National Mandate Party and the Prosperous
Justice Party, with 33.14 percent of the vote, and the Tajudin
Noor-Abdul Djabar Bukran team, nominated by the Pancasila Patriot
Party, getting 5.94 percent of the vote.

The quick count, with a margin of error 2 percent and sample
validity of 95 percent, found that 1.96 percent of votes were
invalid.

Their findings were later reflected in vote counting carried
out by the Kutai Kartanegara General Elections Commission (KPU).

As of 3 p.m on Thursday, Syaukani, who is seeking reelection,
and his running mate Samsuri, topped the count with 156,879
votes, followed by Aji Sofyan Alex-Muhammad Irkham with 84,157
votes, and Tajudin Noor-Abdul Djabar Bukran with 13,712 votes.

As of Thursday the total number of votes counted was 254,749,
from a total 375,925 registered voters.

Based on a quick survey held during and after the election
took place, the poll monitoring groups discovered that
intimidation and violence was found respectively at 1.05 percent
and 1.57 percent of polling stations, out of total 1,391 polling
stations in the resource-rich regency.

In one case, a voter dragged a poll monitoring volunteer out
of a polling station after the he was asked his voting intention.

"But, the incident didn't escalate," said Kahar.

Meanwhile, head of Kutai Kartanegara KPU Ishack Iskandar
disclosed that elections at a polling station in Muara Jawa
district would be repeated on Saturday following a poll
irregularity.

The elections had to be repeated because 11 residents at
Polling Station (TPS) 25 were found to have already voted at
Polling Station 24.