Minor-party alliance vows to reject result of legislative election

A. Junaidi/Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta

An alliance of 17 small parties said on Sunday that it would reject the result of the April 5 legislative election, saying the poll was illegitimate due to many flaws, including erroneous ballot counting and money politics.

"After evaluating the process, we learned that there were so many election violations. We will reject the result and will not sign it," alliance spokesman Eros Djarot said.

With the exception of the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), all other alliance members failed to garner the minimum 3 percent quota of House seats or 5 percent of votes in the general election in order to field candidates to contest the July 5 presidential election.

As of Saturday, the Golkar Party had won 19,643,196 votes, or 21.16 percent, followed by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) with 19.43 percent.

The PKB and the PKS came respectively third and sixth with 11.8 percent and 7.19 percent.

Twenty four political parties participated in the legislative election but only parties or coalitions garnering at least 3 percent votes in the House or 5 percent of valid votes in the April 5 election would be allowed to field candidates in the country's first direct presidential election.

Eros, also chairman of the Freedom Bull National Party (PNBK), said the alliance decided to reject the tally after its earlier complaints received a half-hearted response from the General Elections Commission (KPU).

The alliance had earlier expressed its rejection of the election result, but several parties immediately backed off, saying that members issuing the statement were not representative of their respective parties.

PKB board of patron chairman Abdurrahman Wahid also attended the alliance's meeting, but left only minutes after greeting participants.

PKB deputy chairman Muhammad Mahfud MD said the party supported the alliance due to rampant electoral violations.

"Politically, we support them, but legally, we should ask the Constitutional Court about it. I will discuss the result of the meeting within my own party," Mahfud said.

The meeting was also attended by Pioneers' Party (PPD) chairwoman Rachmawati Soekarnoputri and (PNI Marhaenisme) Marhaenisme Indonesian National Party chairwoman Sukmawati Soekarnoputri, both younger sisters of President and PDI-P leader Megawati Soekarnoputri.

Executives of the Freedom Party, Social Democratic Labor Party (PBSD), United Democratic Nationhood Party (PPDK), New Indonesia Alliance Party (PPIB), Indonesian Democratic Vanguard Party (PPDI) and Reform Star Party (PBR) also attended the meeting.

The official Election Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu) had urged the KPU to hold a recount at hundreds of polling stations due to various violations, but the appeal passed largely unheard.

Meanwhile, KPU member Anas Urbaningrum said on Sunday that his office planned to finish on Monday the manual vote-count of 10 to 11 electoral districts.

On Friday, the commission had finished and approved the results of six electoral districts -- Bali, Yogyakarta, Central Java I, Central Java VII, Central Java X and East Java I.

The majority of votes in these districts went to old, major parties like Golkar and the PDI-P.

For the April 5 legislative election, Indonesia was divided into 69 electoral districts, 60 percent of which were outside Java.

Anas told the Post the commission planned to finish the manual counting by the April 28 deadline.