Landslide victory for Susilo in city

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

As many observers had predicted, presidential candidate Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his running mate Jusuf Kalla would win a landslide victory in the city, collecting 69.21 percent of the votes.

The Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPUD) announced on Friday the final result of the manual counting of the Sept. 20 presidential election runoff during its plenary session that was packed by Susilo's supporters.

The presidential ticket of minor Democratic Party won in all five municipalities and Kepulauan Seribu (Thousand Islands) regency against candidates Megawati Soekarnoputri and running mate Ahmad Hasyim Muzadi, proposed by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

Overall, Susilo-Kalla won by 3,392,663 votes, or 69.21 percent, compared to Megawati-Hasyim of 1,509,402 votes.

KPUD also announced that the number of invalid votes was 118,914 or about 2.37 percent.

There were 6.74 million voters registered by KPUD citywide. Some 1.72 million of them, however, did not cast their votes on election day.

Representatives of Megawati in East Jakarta, however, did not sign the document on manual counting sent to the KPUD to protest the distribution of pins and posters by Susilo supporters in Kalisari subdistrict on election day.

"I hope that KPUD makes a note of the incident in its report to (the national General Election Commission)," said Edi Siswoyo, a representative of Megawati during Friday's manual counting.

Jakarta is the first province to announce the results of its manual counting, while the nation-wide election result is expected to be announced on Oct. 5.

Attending the plenary session on Friday were, among others, Kalla, KPUD members, represenatives of the two candidates, and officials of the city administration, military and police.