Most KPUDs miss submission deadline
Moch. N. Kurniawan and Nani Farida, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Banda Aceh
The General Elections Commission (KPU) will hold manual ballot counting in stages starting from Friday after only 145 of 440 regions submitted their election results to the commission on time.
KPU deputy chairman Ramlan Surbakti said only two provinces -- Bangka Belitung and Bali -- had delivered all their regional election results by the Tuesday deadline.
Central Java, East Java and Yogyakarta, provinces that have sent most of their results, were expected to complete the delivery on Wednesday.
"We have to start data entry (of the results) in stages, followed by manual ballot counting that will be witnessed by 24 political parties and Election Supervisory Committee representatives," Ramlan said after a plenary meeting.
The KPU had no other choice but to accept the late results from the regions, he said.
"We will still try to meet our internal deadline of April 25 to finish manual ballot counting and determine the final results by April 28 at the latest," Ramlan said.
"If we fail to meet that deadline, I'm afraid the preparations for the presidential election will be disrupted."
Ramlan said four regencies in North Sumatra, including North Tapanuli, Samosir and Humbang would hold new elections on Tuesday.
Law No 12/2003 on the legislative election says manual ballot counting results must be announced no more than 30 days after polling day, which fell on April 5. The KPU has said it will announce the results by April 28.
However, it has already pushed back the election timetable due to earlier delays and a source said the schedule would likely be revised once again to anticipate the late delivery of results.
So far, vote totals from manual ballot counting are still not available.
But based on electronic counting, Golkar tops the results with 19,401,252 votes, or 21.14 percent; followed by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) with 17,878,608 votes, or 19.48 percent; and the National Awakening Party (PKB) with 10,908,135 million votes, or 11.89 percent.
Separately, in Banda Aceh, 14 political parties rejected the results of ballot counting in Aceh due to alleged violations.
The parties said the violations at the polling stations were committed by members of the polling station working committees.
"We call on the martial law administration in Aceh to take firm action against perpetrators (of electoral fraud)," the parties, which included Golkar and the Democratic Party, said in a joint statement.
They branded the KPU as arrogant and lacking in transparency.