KPU registers 153 million voters

M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta

The General Elections Commission (KPU) disclosed on Monday that a total of 153,357,307 million people have been registered as eligible voters for the July 5 presidential election, up from the 147,106 million registered for the April 5 legislative elections.

KPU deputy chairman Ramlan Surbakti said that of the new figure, 6,252,012 were new voters recorded during the registration period from April 25 to May 25.

The voter registration drive, conducted by Village Elections Committees (PPS) with the help of community (RW) and neighborhood unit (RT) leaders, recorded people over the age of 17 or married before July 5.

Ramlan said that the increase was not as big as observers and critics had predicted. "They always said that the figure would be 10 million or more."

The increase in the number of eligible voters was also attributable to first-time voters, the number of whom stood at around 800,000.

The KPU is expected to announce its official data on the number of eligible voters next week.

Ramlan said that the increase in eligible voters would be reflected in an increase in the number of presidential ballot papers.

"We will print 160 million ballot papers for the presidential poll which means that the reserve will stand at 2.5 percent of the total number of ballots printed," he said.

He also said that the increase would also result in the building of more polling stations. "For the presidential election, we will have 581,393 polling stations. This is a significant increase over the 576,625 we had for the legislative elections," Ramlan said.

The House of Representatives (DPR) has approved only Rp 3 trillion of the Rp 3.9 trillion budget proposed by the KPU, which had earlier disclosed it would need additional funding of Rp 410 billion.

The commission requires some 660 million ballot papers for the April 5 election, at a cost of more than Rp 180 billion.

Over 15 firms have been tasked with printing the ballot papers. Some of the greater Jakarta-based firms have already completed their jobs.

The KPU has begun to distribute ballot papers, especially to the country's far-flung regions.

The first ever direct presidential election will take place on July 5, with a second round on Sept. 20 if no candidate garners more than 50 percent of the nationwide votes during the first round.