Jakarta recount protested by polling officials

Jakarta recount protested by polling officials

JAKARTA (JP): Several district polling committee officials
raised objections on Sunday concerning the decision of the
Jakarta Provincial Elections Committee to re-count ballot papers
due to indications of serious mistakes in tallying.

Some district polling committees said they would oppose the
decision and leave the re-counting to senior officials in
mayoralty or provincial committees.

"There are no significant errors here and no political
parties' representatives uttered any objections, chairman of East
Jakarta's Pasar Rebo district polling committee Rafles Ma'as told
The Jakarta Post.

"So why should we re-count the ballots?" he asked.

On Friday, an executive of the Provincial Elections Committee
announced that because many discrepancies had been found all
ballot papers should be re-counted, which could reach some four
million papers. Thirty-two city chapters of political parties
said they would demand that the poll in Jakarta be repeated if
differences in tallying could not be settled soon.

Head of the provincial committee's program division Muchammad
Taufik has said all ballot papers should be re-counted, but on
Sunday he said the mechanism would be up to district polling
committees. This would mean they would either reopen and re-count
ballot papers or only check tallying based on documents.

Rafles said that if the provincial committee insisted on a
decision, district polling committee members were willing to
become witnesses only.

"I don't want to waste time. The provincial committee should
take into consideration that district committee members are
exhausted after working day and night even since before the poll,
that some have even sacrificed their jobs," Rafles said.

Discrepancies in tallying should, as a rule, be accepted by
all committee members as they include political parties
contesting the polls.

Rafles, who owns a small cookie business, said, however, that
he was willing to work another two weeks. If the tallying at the
district level was still questioned after that, he said he would
resign from his chairmanship.

"I must think of my family; my business has been in a mess
since more than two weeks ago and I still have to pay my five
workers, which amounts to Rp 30,000 a day, while I'm not getting
any income," Rafles said. The father of seven said he had even
had his cellular phone temporarily cut off to cut expenses.

Guntur Alamsyah, secretary of the Duren Sawit Elections
Committee in East Jakarta, also said re-counting should only
affect places where vote discrepancies occurred.

"Of course we object to the decision because the tallying is
completed; there were differences found at a Pondok Bambu polling
place but they have settled the problem themselves."

Guntur added that the decision shows that the provincial
committee did not trust the work of the 43 district committees.

"We have done the best we could for the sake of a better
political life, but we have not received mutual respect (of the
provincial committee)," he said.

Guntur said he did not want to complain, but the honorarium
for a chairman of a district committee was "far from decent" at
Rp 40,000 until the project finished; a deputy chairman received
Rp 35,000; a secretary Rp 30,000, a deputy secretary Rp 25,000
while committee members received Rp 20,000 each.

However, South Jakarta Mayoralty Elections Committee chairman
Sambudi Bakri told the Post that a re-count should be held
because discrepancies and violations were found at almost all
voting places in his area.

"We will re-count the ballot tomorrow (Monday) with or without
the agreement of district committees. We should question them if
they are reluctant (to re-count the ballots)," he said.

As of Sunday, the mechanism of the re-counting process was
still confusing. In South Jakarta, officials said re-counting
would be held by each district committee, but in Central Jakarta
the process would be by the mayoralty elections committee.

Central Jakarta committee chairman M. Mukson said he had
instructed all district committees to send the ballot boxes to
the mayoralty committee office.

"The re-counting will only be for districts where
discrepancies and violations were found," he told the Post,
adding that this was in line with instructions from provincial
committee chairman Djafar Badjeber.(ind)