No big fraud in vote count: U.S. observers
JAKARTA (JP): With under 50 percent of the general election results submitted, United States observers said on Sunday there was still no hard evidence of major irregularities in tabulation.
The National Democratic Institute and the Carter Center acknowledged in a joint statement that the complex process of counting inevitably took time.
They praised the painstaking work undertaken by members of the election administration, as well as party agents and domestic observers following voting, as a strong commitment to democracy, openness and transparency.
"The dedication to the task shown by such a large number of Indonesians is truly impressive," the NDI and the Carter Center noted in the statement, which followed up their postelection release on June 9.
They believed the existence of three official counting systems -- the official manual tabulation of results, the General Election Commission's "bank" quick results and the Joint Operation Media Center (JOMC) system -- led to confusion.
"This has been exaggerated by the shortage of materials for the two fast counting systems and lack of explanation of their use and importance."
They noted that counting was further delayed as a result of the limited training of election officials prior to the vote.
They noted the need to correct mistakes made earlier in the process. These included errors in handling voter registration or late distribution of election materials and they urged careful checking of results' forms at successive levels to identify and correct large numbers of counting discrepancies.
On the results tallied so far, the NDI and the Carter Center noted that figures from the JOMC largely converged with the parallel vote tabulation from the Rectors Forum and with the sum of unofficial provincial tallies assembled by Antara news agency.
"The results from the election commission's 'bank' system have been and remain substantially different, almost certainly because the huge preponderance of figures from Java and Bali in its returns inevitably make its national totals unrepresentative of Indonesia as a whole."
Commenting on demands for repolling in a number of areas, including the entire province of North Sulawesi, the mission said it was only appropriate in response to specific and credible evidence of substantial fraud or manipulation.
"While retabulation and, if necessary, recounting often prove to be desirable to provide full confidence in the integrity and accuracy of the results, general repolling will reduce such confidence."
They suggested that all complaints should be investigated thoroughly, with judgment on specific cases to be reached and made public as soon as possible.
"This includes the substantial number of allegations that relate to the money politics, especially throughout Sulawesi," they said.
Victory
Separately, President B.J. Habibie on Sunday renewed call on the nation to place national interests above all else, saying that a successful election is the victory for all Indonesians.
Addressing the opening of the annual national Koran reading contest, Habibie said people should accept the result of the election magnanimously, as it had been conducted in a "fair, honest and transparent manner."
"I hope Indonesian people can start nurturing a culture of thinking positively and accepting gracefully that a win or defeat in an election is simply normal," he said.
For the people, Habibie added, the most important thing is not to ascertain which party is the winner but to conduct a fair, honest and transparent election.
A successful general election is expected to help the Indonesian people emerge from their present political and economic adversities, and lead them to a modern and better life, according to the President.
Habibie has been named the presidential candidate by the ruling party Golkar.
The NDI and the Carter Center said their findings were based on meetings in Jakarta with political party leaders, members of the national electoral bodies, representatives of local mass media and domestic monitoring organizations.
In addition, they said, seven teams of observers were deployed across the country from June 13 to June 15. They met with local election monitors, election administrators and representatives of political parties.
Meanwhile, the General Elections Commission announced that as of Sunday evening Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) remained the front runner with 20.61 million votes, followed by the National Awakening Party (PKB) with 10.41 million, Golkar Party with 10 million, Development Unity Party with 5.49 million and the National Mandate Party with 3.80 million.
Earlier on Saturday deputy chairman of the National Elections Committee (PPI) Hasbalah M. Saad said the June 21 deadline for the announcement of final poll results could not be met as several provinces failed to meet the June 17 deadline to announce final tallies.
Many of the provincial election committees finished the votes count but failed to submit it to the PPI, citing unsettled debates over alleged malfeasance that led representatives of parties contending the polls to reject the polls.(amd/vin)