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.