From ballot box to final results

JAKARTA (JP): The long process of counting 124.7 million ballots will begin this afternoon, only hours after election committees from the capital's center to the remotest island close their ballot stations.

This is all part of the "festival of democracy" in the world's fourth most populous country, and the seventh general election since independence in 1945.

Citizens who are married or at least 17 years of age are eligible to vote, but the government will not let political prisoners or people serving at least five years in jail vote.

All 305,219 polling stations will open at 8 a.m. and close at 2 p.m. local times.

The 1.8 million eligible voters overseas may vote at embassies between 8 p.m. and 2 p.m. at the respective local times.

Today is not a public holiday despite millions having to stop work to vote. Millions of people will vote at polling stations near their schools, universities and places of work.

Today's vote is the climax of 12 months of preparation to decide who will occupy 425 of the 500 seats in the House of Representatives. The government has approved 1,803 legislative candidates fielded by three parties.

General elections have been a five-yearly routine since 1977. The country's first two elections were held in 1955 and 1971.

Political laws introduced in 1973 restricted participation in elections to only three parties: Golkar which has been in power since 1971; the United Development Party (PPP) which has a Moslem orientation; and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) which grew out of an alliance of Christian-nationalist parties.

The election follows "direct, free and confidential" principles. No one is allowed to vote by proxy.

After registering at polling stations by swapping their voting notifications for ballot papers, people will proceed to private booths to vote.

Besides the officials in charge of registration and voting, there will be three official scrutineers, one from each party, at every polling station. Elections committees may pick volunteers to scrutinize voting procedures on behalf of parties which fail to provide their own scrutineers.

Voters will punch holes in the symbol of one of the three parties on three separate ballot papers, to chose representatives at each of the country's three levels of legislature. The three ballot papers must then be placed in three different boxes, reflecting the three tiers of legislature. This system applies in every province except Jakarta.

Ballots for the House of Representatives will be cast in yellow boxes. Ballots for provincial legislative councils will be cast in white boxes. And ballots for local councils will be cast in blue boxes.

People in Jakarta will only vote for the House and the provincial legislative council.

Symbol

Each ballot paper shows three symbols -- one for each of the three parties -- under the numbers one to three. The PPP is number one with a five-pointed star, Golkar is number two with a banyan tree and the PDI is number three with a bull's head.

Ballot counting will start at 2 p.m. at each of the polling stations. The officer in charge of each station will supervise the counting under the watchful eyes of the three scrutineers. Results of the counting will be written on large boards so that everybody at the stations can monitor it.

After finishing counting, elections committees and scrutineers will sign seven copies of reports on the number of votes for each of the parties, the number of void ballots and any complaints lodged by scrutineers or voters.

Despite these precautions, reports will be considered valid without scrutineers' signatures.

Scrutineers will not receive copies of the reports, denying the parties any chance to sue the National Elections Committee over cheating allegations.

Both the PPP and PDI have repeatedly complained of irregularities during ballot counting at past elections, and have tried in vain to change the election rules.

Independent researcher Alexander Irwan published a book in 1995 which said that 1,000 irregularities occurred in the 1992 election, 510 of them at polling stations.

Political scientist Syamsuddin Harris said elections under the New Order government were open to cheating because the bureaucracy acted as the election organizer and Golkar's patron.

Members of national and neighborhood elections committees are all bureaucrats and therefore Golkar functionaries.

The Coordinating Agency for Election Communication Systems will oversee the couriers who deliver ballot boxes from polling stations to subdistrict offices.

Poll results from the country's 3,903 subdistricts will be transmitted to 305 regencies using an Armed Forces' radio network.

The state telecommunications company PT Telkom will then takeover the transmission of election results to the National Elections Committee's office. Telkom will be backed up by the Armed Forces and local government telecommunication's networks.

Only the National Elections Committee and five government officials will have access to the database compiling the election results.

The officials are President Soeharto, Vice President Try Sutrisno, Armed Forces chief Gen. Feisal Tanjung, Minister of Home Affairs Moch. Yogie S.M. and Minister of Information Harmoko.

Harmoko is also Golkar's chairman. Yogie is chairman of the General Elections Institute and the National Elections Committee.

Preliminary results from counting in the 27 provinces will be broadcast by state television station TVRI from 7 p.m. tonight. Updates will be broadcast hourly for several days, before the government announces the final result on June 17.

Golkar, the unanimous winner of the last five elections, is setting its sights on gaining at least 70 percent of the vote. (amd)