National Elections Committee to probe 2.7m invalid votes
JAKARTA (JP): The National Elections Committee (PPI) has pledged to investigate the incidence of invalid ballots, which reached 2.7 million as of late Friday.
Committee deputy chairman Hasbalah M. Saad said on Saturday it would establish whether the ballots were found before or after the June 7 polls.
"It would be a problem if the invalid ballots were found before the polls," Hasbalah told The Jakarta Post.
The figure was revealed by the General Elections Commission (KPU), the issuer of official poll results. The invalid ballots is among scheduled topics to be discussed in a plenary meeting of the committee on Monday.
It is one of several obstacles holding up the final count.
Hasbalah also said the announcement of final results, initially set for Monday, would have to be extended due to the problems.
He said PPI was awaiting results of vote counting in North Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi, West Nusa Tenggara, Maluku, Irian Jaya and North Sumatra.
"The reholding of elections in a number of subdistricts in North and Southeast Sulawesi and North Sumatra is still being arranged while elections in several subdistricts in Aceh have yet to be held," he said.
As of Sunday, the North Sumatra election committee waited reports electoral districts from Medan, Mandailing Natal, Toba Samosir, Sibolga and Dairi. Errors in vote tally were found in the regions.
Deputy secretary of the provincial electoral body, Riz Irawani Hasibuan, said the tallying would have been completed by Wednesday.
Objections marred the completion of the vote tabulation in Central Java and Yogyakarta over the weekend. The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) was the runaway winner in both provinces.
In Central Java, the Democratic People's Party (PRD), Democratic Islam Party (PID), New Indonesia Party (PIB), Indonesian Workers Party (PPI) and Workers Solidarity Party (PSP) rejected the polls after the provincial committee chairman, Hadi Pranoto, ignored their protests over irregularities. Hadi said only poll witnesses were entitled to raise objections.
The Yogyakarta electoral body finished the count on Friday night, but failed to submit the results to the PPI after six witnesses and two committee members refused to approve them on Saturday. They cited rampant vote rigging and other election- related violations and technical errors during the count. Two more poll witnesses were absent.
Chairman of the provincial election committee Nur Achmad Affandi said the results would only be sent to Jakarta after the protesters put their objections in writing.
The West Java electoral body also failed to forward its results to the PPI on Saturday. Chairman Djadja Saefulloh told Antara that an error was found in the vote tally conducted in Bogor regency. Unfortunately, representatives of the regency election committee were on their way home from Bandung when the error was discovered.
Violations
Hasballah attributed delays in provincial results being sent to PPI to the numerous allegations of polling violations and the slow transfer of votes from villages to subdistricts and to regencies.
"In addition, many political parties contesting the elections refused to accept election results in several regencies."
He said that the official Supervisory Election Committee also was late in responding to reports of violations in regions.
"This means that the supervisory committee is not proactive in handling cases," Hasbalah said. "The mechanism designed by the KPU, the PPI and the supervisory committee to deal with cases did not proceed smoothly in several regions."
Allegations of violations also hampered the tabulation in South Sulawesi and North Sumatra. Among these is a letter dated May 18 from the head of the education and culture office in Nias, North Sumatra, H. Telaumbanua, asking local teachers and civil servants to vote for Golkar.
In Ujungpandang, South Sulawesi, deputy of the supervisory committee Todung Mulya Lubis announced his findings after he checked on demands to repeat the polls in North Sulawesi. He concluded the demand was "only among the political elite" and that the public in the province were not ready for the polls to be reheld.
He told the Post at Hasanuddin Airport that the reholding would only affect from 10 to 100 of about 4,000 polling stations in the province.
He described the poll problems as minor, covering such matters as unstamped ballot papers and double voting. Todung is also national coordinator of the University Network for Free and Fair Elections (Unfrel).(har/rms/27/40/43/44/48/amd)