KPU delays ballot paper printing for another week

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The printing of 600 million ballot papers has been delayed for another week, the General Elections Commission (KPU) said on Tuesday.

KPU deputy chairman Ramlan Surbakti said ballot paper printing would not start until Feb. 15 as print negatives would not be ready until Feb. 12. It would then take up to two days to final- check the printing process he said.

Previously, the KPU said it would start printing the ballot papers on Feb. 5 but it rescheduled the date to Feb. 8 because it had not finished verifying the legislative candidates.

Ramlan assured the public printing would be completed within 20 days to avoid a domino effect of more delays in the election process.

Ballot papers and boxes are scheduled to reach all 560,000 polling stations 10 days before the start of the April 5 general elections.

The KPU has selected 18 of the 20 firms that will print the ballot papers. However, it has yet to determine the area of coverage of each winning bidder.

Among the winners are Temprina Media Grafika, Genta Singgalang, State Printing Company (PNRI), and state-owned securities paper and bank note printing company (Peruri).

Ramlan said the KPU might divide the country into 10 printing areas centered in Jakarta, Bandung, Semarang, Surakarta, Surabaya, Makassar, Medan, Padang and Palembang.

Film-negatives were currently being processed by PNRI and Grafitec. The two companies had promised to finish the negatives for House of Representatives legislative candidates and Regional Representatives candidates by Friday, Ramlan said.

The negatives for candidates of provincial and regental legislatures would be ready by Feb. 16, Ramlan said.

Separately, KPU deputy secretary general Sussongko Suhardjo said ballot box producer Survindo Indah Prestasi had requested its production target be cut to make only 601,000 of the 877,000 boxes it was contracted to produce.

The KPU received on Tuesday a letter dated Jan. 28 from the company, formally asking for the commission's leniency.

Sussongko said the KPU would grant to the request and give the remaining 276,000 boxes to CV Almas, which finished third in the tender.

A company executive connected to the process said Pura Barutama, the firm contracted to produce the voter registration cards, and another firm, Bukaka, were offering Almas money to help take over production from Survindo.

Ferry Alfiand, of PT Cipta Kreasi Packindo, one of 11 factories subcontracted by Survindo, confirmed all factories would leave Survindo and cooperate with Pura and Almas to produce the remaining ballot boxes.

Survindo was initially named the sole winner of the tender to make all of the 2.19 million boxes required for the elections.

It had spent Rp 36.4 billion to buy enough raw materials to produce 575,000 boxes but had only managed to produce 430,000, Ferry said.

Almas has been given 10 percent of the total number of ballot boxes needed for the elections, while second-ranked Tjakrindo Mas has been awarded the contract to produce 50 percent of the boxes.

Tjakrindo representative Mochtar B.U. said his company had completed 877,000 ballot boxes and KPU had disbursed the first down-payment amounting to Rp 31 billion to his company.