More than half of ballot papers printed so far
M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta
The logistical woes that afflicted the legislative elections seem unlikely to affect the July 5 presidential polls as three weeks before polling day the firms appointed by the General Elections Commission (KPU) have managed to print and to distribute a large percentage of the ballot papers.
Data from the KPU made available to The Jakarta Post on Friday showed that nine of the 18 firms contracted to print the ballot papers had completed the printing of 74.3 million papers or almost 50 percent of the total.
Distribution companies appointed by the KPU are delivering the papers to the country's provinces, with far-flung regions receiving priority.
KPU member Mulyana W. Kusumah said that the first batches of papers had now reached 28 of the country's 32 provinces. "Some have already even arrived at the regency level," he told reporters here.
Mulyana said that ballot paper distribution would be unlikely to face serious problems, and he was optimistic that the commission could beat the June 25 deadline for the necessary full consignments of ballot papers to have arrived in all 440 regencies.
"I expect that the printing of all ballot papers will have been completed by June 15 and their distribution to have been wrapped up by June 20," he said.
The commission has appointed 19 firms to print over 160 million ballot papers bearing the pictures of all the presidential and vice presidential candidates.
Recently, the KPU appointed three more firms to print the ballot papers besides the 15 firms that had already been awarded contracts. The new firms are PT Intermasa, PT Induk Sarana and CV Rizky Grafis.
They have been given contracts to print a total of 17,753,503 papers.
Official printing began on May 28 and each of the printers was given 10 days to complete the work, including packaging.
The commission has registered a total of 153,357,307 million eligible voters for the presidential election, up from the 147,106 million registered for the legislative elections.
The House of Representatives (DPR) has approved only Rp 3 trillion of the Rp 3.9 trillion election budget proposed by the KPU. In addition, a substantial amount was spent on the legislative elections, with the result that the commission says it will now need additional funding of Rp 410 billion for the presidential election.
Mulyana said in order cope with the funding shortage, election commissions at all levels had been ordered to reduce their expenditure.
"The presidential election will be much simpler than the legislative elections. Therefore, it will be possible to trim back unnecessary expenses," he said.