Golkar declared poll winner

JAKARTA (JP): With complaints of election irregularities still to be investigated, the National Elections Committee delivered yesterday the final results of the May 29 general election and endorsement by the three parties.

Laughter, friendly discussion and applause was all that accompanied the announcement by committee chairman Moch. Yogie S.M. in an agreeable ending to two months of election violence.

No eyebrows were raised at yesterday's announcement, but the absence was noted of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) chairman Soerjadi, who is blamed for the party's poor performance.

Golkar chairman Harmoko and the United Development Party (PPP) chairman Ismail Hasan Metareum attended.

PDI secretary-general Buttu R. Hutapea represented Soerjadi, who was chairing a House of Representatives plenary session, when the final results were announced.

As predicted, Golkar maintained its firm grip, winning 325 of the 425 House seats with 84,187,907 votes.

Golkar had a clean sweep of seats in Jambi, Bengkulu, Bali, North Sulawesi and Southeast Sulawesi.

It was the best performance ever by Golkar, which has won all six general elections held under the New Order since 1971. Golkar won the 1992 election with 282 House seats.

The Moslem-oriented PPP also made big gains in this election, winning 89 House seats. Its best previous performance was in 1977 when it won 79 seats. It won only 62 seats in 1992.

Yesterday's results confirmed that PDI -- which has finished last in the last six elections -- has scrapped in with the minimum House representation of 11 seats.

The last minute inclusion of Fatimah Achmad in North Sumatra meant that the House will not be forced to modify its internal rules on decision making.

The rules say that each party and the Armed Forces must be represented in each of the House's 11 commissions.

Provisional results before last Friday showed that the PDI had 10 seats, with Soerjadi and Buttu failing to be elected to the House.

Golkar then offered a vote trade-off to help the PDI increase its seats so that House rules would not have to be changed. The deal fell through because vote trading is only allowed if it is made public before the election.

An unusually antsy Fatimah, a House member since 1987, refused to comment on her reelection. But Buttu tried to satisfy press queries.

"Our votes came from the masses, not from Golkar's charity. Should Golkar have granted us votes, we would have welcome them. But in fact the offer did not materialize," Buttu said.

He played down the PDI's tiny representation, saying the party would cooperate with other parties and the Armed Forces in the House.

"Our 11-strong soccer team are set to battle it out in Senayan," he joked in his impromptu speech after the results were announced.

The House of Representatives is near Senayan sports stadium.

Irregularities

The PPP's endorsement of final results came only after an overnight leadership meeting. There were fears that the party would not endorse the results because of its allegations of electoral law violations.

"We reluctantly approved the results for the good of the country's future... We have to apologize to our supporters who may be disappointed with this unpopular decision," Ismail said.

In a statement read by Ismail, the party regretted that this year's election was tarnished by more violations and vote-rigging by government officials than in past elections.

"Generally speaking, we consider the quality of this election was no better than the previous ones," he said. The PPP has compiled 984 cases of electoral law violations during the election.

The party suggested that the government change the electoral rules to guarantee democratic, fair and honest general elections in future.

Golkar chairman Harmoko contended the PPP's statement, saying that this election was an improvement because the three parties had reached consensus on campaign methods and that the election had generally been orderly.

"Riots that occurred during the election stages were purely crimes and had nothing to do with the general election's quality," he said.

Golkar said the high participation rate in the May 29 poll had proved its worthiness.

Yogie declared that 112,161,955 valid ballots had been cast; 89.9 percent of the country's 124.7 million registered voters.

Despite its landslide victory, Golkar complained about the 1,572 election irregularities that it had discovered, and asked the Elections Supervision Committee to investigate them.

The violations toll soared yesterday when Buttu gave Yogie a document listing the PDI's 370 complaints of irregularities. (aan/amd)

Photo -- Page 2

Editorial -- Page 4