KPU members agree to gradual ballot count

JAKARTA (JP): Pressed for time, the General Elections Commission (KPU) agreed on Tuesday to begin the national ballot count before the final poll results came in from all of the 27 provinces.

Commission deputy chairman Adnan Buyung Nasution said the national ballot count would not begin until the KPU met with the official Election Monitoring Committee on Thursday to hear the report of a special team assigned to inventory and classify reports of alleged elections errors and fraud in a number of provinces.

"We could start the national vote count with the provinces whose official vote counts are already completed and clear of complaints of errors and fraud," Nasution said after chairing a plenary meeting at the KPU secretariat.

He said the national vote count would proceed gradually on a first-in-first-out basis.

Article two of the 1999 General Election Law stipulates that official reports and complaints should not halt the entire elections process.

As of Tuesday, Lampung, Bali, Yogyakarta, East Timor, Jambi, West Java, Irian Jaya, Aceh and West Sumatra had completed their vote counts.

The KPU and the General Elections Committee have been criticized for the slow pace of the vote count. On Monday, the KPU postponed the national vote count pending an investigation into reports of electoral law violations in several provinces.

Nasution said June 21 was the first day of the national vote count, not the official deadline for the announcement of final poll results.

"The endorsement and announcement of the national vote count is scheduled for July 6, while for the overall count it is scheduled for July 8," Nasution said.

The Election Monitoring Committee's 11-member special team, led by Benny Akbar Fatah of the National Labor Party (PBN), will have one day to give its report on reports of elections fraud and errors in the provinces.

Nasution said the monitoring committee would be involved in setting the date for the start of the national vote count because it had the authority to resolve all electoral errors and fraud.

The formation of the special team drew criticism from the Independent Election Monitoring Committee (KIPP), which said the KPU had overreached its authority in establishing the team.

In a statement signed by secretary-general Mulyana W. Kusuma, KIPP said the law on elections stipulated the Elections Supervisory Committee, not the KPU, had authority in all cases related to election monitoring.

Human constraint

Nasution attributed the slow vote count to inexperienced human resources, not an inadequate computer system.

"Most of the data entry operators entering poll results are not familiar with the system, while the number of documents to be incorporated into the elections results report is abundant," he said.

He also blamed the slow tallying on several subdistricts which physically sent poll results to elections committees at the regency and national levels instead of entering the results at the KPU's data centers.

Commenting on alleged corruption in the KPU, Nasution said he only knew about such charges from the press.

"The alleged corruption has been blown up by the press. The KPU will soon hold a plenary meeting to discuss necessary actions in response to the allegations," he said.

"I have no idea, at least until after the plenary session, whether we will let an independent accountant audit KPU members' accounts or let the police investigate the matter," he said.

Allegations of corruption were first raised by KPU member Sri Bintang Pamungkas of the Indonesian Democratic Union Party (PUDI) last week. Bintang said KPU members had received money in installments and the amount of the money varied.

Another KPU member, Mustaf Kamal from the Justice Party (PK), backed the allegation on Monday, saying he had the original copies of three checks he had received. He said the checks were given to him by companies which won the tenders to supply ballots for the elections and flags for the 48 parties contesting the polls.

"The first check was for Rp 5 million (US$694.40), the second for Rp 12 million and the last for Rp 78 million," he said.

In a related development, the North Sumatra Provincial Elections Committee announced on Tuesday that three regencies -- Dairi, Toba Samosir and Sibolga -- had not submitted their official elections reports.

Meanwhile, the deputy secretary of the South Sulawesi Provincial Elections Committee, Haswan, said in Ujungpandang on Tuesday that the local elections committee could not submit its official elections report because it was still waiting for tabulated reports from six regency elections committees.

"We have only received the official reports from 18 of the 24 regencies in South Sulawesi," he said.(imn/27/39)