Individuals mark ballot papers with personal code in gubernatorial election

Bambang Nurbianto and Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A councillor from PDI Perjuangan's faction at the City Council admitted on Tuesday that members of the faction had their own code to mark the ballot papers in the recent gubernatorial election.

Audi I. Z. Tambunan said the faction agreed to mark the ballot papers with a code to conform with a directive from the party's central board to elect governor Sutiyoso for the next term.

"Everyone had his or her own code," he said.

Sutiyoso received 47 votes from a total of 84 councillors who cast their ballots. PDI Perjuangan has 30 seats in the council.

All councillors had to write the official names of the candidates as stipulated by the election committee. In the case of Sutiyoso, the name was H. Sutiyoso. H stands for Haj.

"The one with the bold H, was mine," Audi said.

According to Agus Darmawan of the National Mandate Party (PAN), the coding indicated not only the practice of money politics, but it was also a violation of the principle of secrecy in the voting process.

"It means that the voting was not secret as there was an intention to control councillors during the voting," Agus said.

"It could affect the validity of the election result," he said.

Justice Party (PK) faction chairman Ahmad Heryawan supported Agus' view, saying that, "if it's true that the ballots were marked, it violates election' principles, including fairness and secrecy."

A number of activists and several councillors, including Ugiek Soegihardjo, one of a few PDI Perjuangan members who opposed Sutiyoso, visited the home ministry on Monday, demanding that the ministry annul the result of the election. They also demanded that the ballot box be reopened to check the ballot papers.

The demand to reopen the ballot box was sparked by a statement made by three councillors who witnessed the ballot counting. They were Agus, Abdul Aziz Matnur of PK, and Syarifien Maloko of the Crescent Star Party (PBB) faction. They said they observed coding on the ballot papers for Sutiyoso and Fauzi Bowo, the elected vice governor.

Their statement was made a day after Wednesday's election. Agus said he did not immediately reveal the irregularities because at that time he was not aware of the code.

Many city councillors, however, expressed their reluctance to reopen the ballot box.

"If it is to be reopened it should be done at the City Council's plenary session. The Council leaders cannot make a decision on it," said Posman Siahaan of the Justice and Unity Party (PKP) faction on Tuesday.

He also said that it was not necessary to reopen it as he ballot counting was witnessed by representatives of 11 factions in the City Council.

A similar statement was made by Audi and Koesnadi Soesilohardjo from the PDI Perjuangan faction, and Ibnu Sumantri of the Indonesian Military/National Police faction.

Ibnu, who is also deputy chairman of the election committee, said the committee would meet on Wednesday to make decision on whether the election result was acceptable or not.

"In my opinion, the committee should approve the election result as after three days of public scrutiny, there have not been any (valid) reports on money politics submitted to the committee," he said.

Meanwhile, Heryawan, chairman of the PAN faction Nazamuddin, and City Council Deputy Chairman Tarmidi Suhardjo of PDI Perjuangan stated that he would not approve the result of the election in protest of irregularities during the election.