Kutai election challenged

KUTAI KARTANEGARA, East Kalimantan: A candidate in the recent Kutai Kartanegara regency election refused to sign the final vote count on Wednesday to make the vote official.

"Before the Kutai Kartanegara Election Committee counts the votes and announces the winner, it should look at reports of violations," the candidate, Sofyan Alex, said on Wednesday.

According to the unofficial final vote tally, the pair of Syaukani and Syamsuri won the election and will served as regent and deputy regent for the 2005 to 2010 term of office. The candidates, nominated by the Golkar Party, won 159,303 votes according to the uncertified election results.

The candidates Aji Sofyan Alex and running mate M. Irkham, nominated by the National Mandate Party and the Prosperous Justice Party, received 88,625 votes, according to the unofficial results.

This preliminary vote tally had the pair of Tajuddin Noor- Abdul Jabar Bukran, who were nominated by several parties, including United Development Party, with 13,862 votes. There were 261,790 valid votes cast in the election, while another 3,894 votes were thrown out for various reasons.

"Reported election violations are still being investigated, and we should respect the process until the authorities officially declare the election proceeded according to all regulations," Sofyan said, adding that if the court ordered it the election would have to be repeated.

The head of the Election Supervisory Committee, Ischak Iskandar, played down Sofyan's refusal to sign off on the election results, saying the vote count was legitimate and that Syaukani and Syamsuri were the elected regent and deputy regent, respectively.

The new regent and deputy regent are scheduled to be inaugurated on July 8. -- JP