Govt denies trying to rig election results

JAKARTA (JP): Government and Golkar officials joined forces yesterday to defend a Bengkulu subdistrict chief accused by the United Development Party (PPP) of trying to rig election results.

They said the bureaucrat had only made a written prediction of local results for the May 29 election which was something that anyone could do. They said the document had been manipulated and leaked to look like an official plan to favor Golkar.

Attorney General Singgih and Golkar's election strategy department chief, Rully Chairul Azwar, met Minister of Home Affairs Yogie S.M. separately yesterday to discuss the accusation and defend the subdistrict chief, Wadjis Mulyadi.

Yogie, who heads the General Elections Institute, said the disputed document was "nothing" because it was the Gading Cempaka subdistrict chief's estimated poll result.

"Everyone has the right to make such an estimate," he said in a press conference attended by Singgih, who chairs the Election Supervision Committee.

The press conference was called in response to PPP Chief Ismail Hasan Metareum's allegation that subdistrict bureaucrats in Bengkulu had predetermined the results of voting in Gading Cempaka.

According to Mulyadi's document, the PPP wins 7.00 percent of the local vote, the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) gets 6.71 percent and Golkar wins easily with 86.29 percent.

The document, signed by the local Election Supervision Committee chief, contained detailed figures on votes cast for the parties in every village in Gading Cempaka.

Singgih said that predicting election results was not illegal and that the document was not confidential.

Yogie said the prediction was meaningless because it had not been made on an official form. He showed reporters an official form on which ballot results should be recorded.

Asked why the prediction contained so much detail -- the document also mentions numbers of invalid votes -- Yogie said: "Because he is the subdistrict head he has all the data on past elections which can be used to project the outcome of the coming poll."

Rully Chairul Azwar said Wadjis had done nothing wrong because he had only been fulfilling his responsibility as a Golkar cadre by making the projection of local voting.

"Golkar's central board needs these reports from its cadres at the village level to set its target of achievement in the general election".

"Nobody should have been angry with the report. The problem is that it appeared during the campaign period, though we have been compiling projection reports since 1995," he said after meeting Yogie.

Golkar, seeking its sixth consecutive victory, aims to win 70.02 percent of votes from about 124.7 million eligible voters at the May 29 poll.

Rully, a legislative candidate from Bengkulu, said Mulyadi had predicted the PPP's and PDI's popularity based on their performances in past elections.

PPP secretary general Tosari Widjaya said yesterday, "We are concerned about the report because it gives the impression that the election is over."

"Besides the document that we obtained, although it is not a state document, doesn't contain the word 'prediction', but simply 'ballot results'. We just don't want to see that such a prediction becomes an official result." (aan/swe)