Panwaslu reports alleged pro-Susilo fraud
Abdul Khalik, Jakarta
The Election Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu) filed a police report on Thursday over alleged election violations by staff members at the Indonesian Consulate General in Tawau, East Malaysia.
Panwaslu member Mashudi Ridwan alleged that consulate staff punched some 8,000 ballots for presidential candidate Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his running mate Jusuf Kalla.
"The East Kalimantan Election Supervisory Committee discovered that several members of the Tawau staff and poll station committee members punched the 8,000 ballots before the election. They voted for candidate No. 4," said Mashudi, referring to Susilo's ballot number.
Susilo was one of five presidential candidates contesting the country's first ever direct presidential election on July 5. The others were Wiranto, Megawati Soekarnoputri, Amien Rais and Hamzah Haz.
Susilo currently leads the provisional vote tally with 33.5 percent of the approximately 105 million votes that have been counted. Megawati is trailing in second with 26.2 percent, followed by Wiranto with 22.1 percent.
Mashudi declined to provide the names of anyone involved in the fraud, saying Panwaslu and the police were still investigating the case.
He said local Panwaslu members were coordinating with Tawau Police liaison officers to investigate the alleged violation before turning over the case to the National Police.
Brig. Gen. Bambang Aris of the National Police confirmed that he and his team would soon be leaving for Tawau to see if there was sufficient evidence to proceed with the investigation.
He said the police could not yet declare anybody a suspect because they had not carried out an investigation.
"We will go to Tawau and check the report first. We cannot say anything before we investigate the alleged fraud there. But if the violation did occur we will name suspects as soon as possible," said Bambang.
He said National Police officers had to travel to Tawau to protect local Panwaslu members because there were reports that the members were being threatened to cancel their report.
There are allegations of similar election fraud benefiting Susilo in Timika, Papua. In this case, two subdistrict poll officials allegedly punched 3,200 ballot papers for Susilo.
The fraud was discovered by local authorities and the two subdistrict officials have been detained for questioning.
Susilo won by a landslide at several polling stations in Mimika subdistrict, Timika.
The two suspects, who have been identified as Edward Wenda and Pasmin Weya, reportedly told police they were paid by Susilo's campaign team in Timika to commit election fraud for Susilo.
Asked whether Susilo's campaign team might have bribed the consulate staff, Mashudi and Bambang said they could not speculate on that and had to investigate the matter first.
"We will investigate the possibility of their involvement in the fraud. However, we have no idea right now," said Bambang.