Local elections peaceful despite threats, delays

Local elections peaceful despite threats, delays

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Poll cancellations, protests and rumors of clashes disrupted the
landmark direct local leadership elections in some of the
country's regencies and municipalities on Monday.

In North Sumatra, the election in Sibolga municipality had to
be postponed to allow the completion of voter registration. The
province had earlier been scheduled to hold elections in 13
regencies and municipalities, including Medan city.

Earlier, the election in Binjai city also appeared set to be
put on hold following protests by some unregistered voters on
Sunday. On Monday morning, however, the Binjai Election Committee
decided to go ahead with the election despite a boycott by three
of the four tickets contesting the poll.

Low voter turnout was recorded during the Medan mayoral
election. At Polling Station No. 25 in Tanjung Gusta, Helvetia
district, only 80 out of 158 registered voters bothered to cast
their votes.

"Compared to the previous legislative and presidential
elections, people's interest in this election is very low. I
don't know why," said Syamsuri Usman, head of the polling station
committee.

In the Central Java town of Surakarta, the city was deserted
as many businesses remained closed for election day.

Even busy Coyudan street, famed for its gold and jewelry
stores, and the popular Klewer market were closed following
rumors there would be clashes between supporters of the rival
candidates standing for mayor and deputy mayor.

As of 7 p.m. on Monday, however, the city was still peaceful,
with the Joko Widodo-Rudy Hadiyatmo ticket (nominated by the
Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle/PDIP) leading the field
with 19,911 votes (40.79 percent).

They were followed by the Hardono-Dipokusumo ticket (nominated
by the Golkar Party) with 13,290 votes; the Achmad Purnomo-Istar
Yuliadi ticket (National Mandate Party/PAN) with 13,255 votes;
and Slamet Suryanto-Henky Nartosabdo, nominated by a coalition of
small parties, with 2,356 votes.

In South Sulawesi, elections proceeded smoothly in 10
regencies on Monday, although protests were staged in several
regencies by voters who lacked registration cards or were not on
the official voter lists.

In Gowa regency, the local election committee had to set up
special voting booths in 16 districts to accommodate some 3,500
unlisted voters. It also had to photocopy ballot papers as there
were not enough original papers for all 377,031 registered
voters.

Protests erupted at a polling station in Soppeng when it
turned out that many of the voters were actually children.

In the Bandarlampung mayoral election, a quick count conducted
by the Lampung Rectors Forum produced a surprise with the Eddy
Sutrisno-Kherlani ticket (PDIP) leading the field on 23.87
percent of the votes.

They were closely followed by two other tickets -- Abdul
Hakim-Zainal Iskandar (Prosperous Justice Party/PKS) with 22.59
percent, and Sjachrazad Z.P.-Rudy Syawal (Golkar Party) with
21.53 percent. A total of six tickets were contesting the
election.

In West Sumatra, where polls were held in 10 regencies and
municipalities on Monday, hundreds of voters in Pasaman regency
found that their names had been omitted from the register.

As predicted, the Zulkifli Nurdin-Anthony Zedra Abidin ticket
appeared set to win in the Jambi gubernatorial election. Zulkifli
was Jambi governor from 1999 to 2004.

As of noon on Monday, the Jambi Provincial Election Committee
said the pair had garnered 370,117 votes out of the 464,578 votes
cast. The electorate in Jambi numbered some 1.8 million people.

In Yogyakarta, the incumbent regent of Sleman, Ibnu Subiyanto,
and former Bantul regent Idham Samawi appeared likely to win the
elections in their respective regencies.

Early returns showed that Ibnu Subiyanto of the Indonesian
Democratic Party of Struggle had taken 195,646 votes, or 39.48
percent of the total of 495,599 valid votes counted by the Sleman
Election Committee. Meanwhile, Idham Samawi, also of the PDIP,
had taken 347,310 votes, or 73.07 percent of the total of 475,308
valid votes.