Late counting hinders parties' vote estimates
JAKARTA (JP): Political parties have experienced difficulties collecting returns from provinces and regencies across the country because of poor communication facilities and late ballot counting.
They are racing against time, collecting their own information on poll results, as opposed to data fed to the General Elections Committee (KPU), in a bid to minimize poll rigging.
Party officials said on Tuesday the main problems were a lack of telephone lines and late ballot counting. Many polling officials reported that they had finished counting votes early Tuesday.
Retur Kaligis of the Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) said as of Tuesday, the party had received returns from North Sumatra, Jakarta, Central Java and Aceh.
Another staffer said as of 7:15 p.m. the party had an average of 80 percent of votes in Bali regencies, 50 percent in Jambi and over 40 percent in Central Java.
Kaligis said the information was received from party provincial and regency branches officials faxing or phoning in results to the party's ballot-counting office in the Wisma Perjuangan building in Pecenongan, Central Jakarta.
"Data is fed into the computer by seven people here. We are planning to go online soon, but I can't tell exactly when," Kaligis said.
Dwita, another PDI Perjuangan official in charge of collecting poll information from the provinces, said the party wanted to see all data cross-checked by the party's two committees before making any public announcements.
She said she did not expect to obtain a complete report from Greater Jakarta until Wednesday or Thursday, because in some places ballot counting had not been completed until late Monday.
"There are many problems: no ballot cards, no ballot holograms, no ink ... the list goes on."
Eki Indra Wahyudi, a staff member at the National Mandate Party (PAN) ballot-counting center, which has a 24-hour online communication system with provincial representatives nationwide, said he was yet to receive vote results.
"We're also confused. We heard that we won in Padang, West Sumatra, but we haven't got any figures yet," Eki said Tuesday afternoon.
Didiek, a National Awakening Party (PKB) official in charge of statistical affairs said his party had only received data from 10 polling stations in Jakarta.
He said he hoped to receive detailed reports from across the country in five days.
"We have been checking for results since 11:30 p.m. on Monday with PKB provincial and regency branches ... staff members said that counting would take a very long time," Didiek said from his office which boasted two telephone/fax lines.
A Golkar Party official, Hansigar, was the only party representative with a success story.
By 10:22 p.m. Golkar's monitoring revealed national results of 2,955,195 votes for PDI Perjuangan and 2,325,146 votes for Golkar, followed by PPP with 688,818 votes and PAN with 492,014.
He said the party's ballot-counting team, comprising more than 10 people, were receiving updates every half-hour from 20 provinces, with each provincial and regency office possessing at least one telephone line.
He said provincial branches which had not filed reports were Jakarta, North Sumatra, Central Sulawesi, Bengkulu and East Timor. "We are not using state facilities. All the telephone lines were installed in early May and will be cut off after two months."
Dento, a systems analyst at the multimedia firm Warta Global, said the company had set up an online system at 18 terminals here for data-processing for the Golkar party.
"No Internet service provider is used... it's a special line only for the party," he said.
Dento added that the online information was currently accessible only by Golkar provincial executives in Java, Bali and Riau. (ylt)