Landslide victory for Susilo in city

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.