Papua lags behind on tabulation
Nethy Darma Somba, The Jakarta Post, Jayapura, Papua
After election delays in many parts of Papua, the country's easternmost province is now facing belated ballot counting due its isolation, a lack of computers and expertise about tabulation procedures.
The Papua Regional Elections Commission (KPUD) said on Tuesday it had not yet received results of the ballot counting from the province's polling stations where voting took place largely without incident on Monday.
"None of the local KPU offices in the regencies and municipalities have sent their tabulated legislative election results to us," the chairman of KPUD Papua Marthen Ferry Kareth said.
He said poll committee members had complained about complicated procedures in counting the ballots, raising a question as to whether they had undergone enough training to carry out their jobs.
"The poll committee members found difficulties in filling in the many forms required to report the vote counting results. The procedure was much more complicated compared to the previous election," Kareth said.
He said in some polling stations in remote areas, the vote ccounting would start on Tuesday because voting started after dsk and finished at midnight on Monday because election materials came in late.
Kareth said most regental election commissions would send their results to the provincial election commissions by facsimile because many computers did not work properly.
"Only three regental election commissions across the province sent the data through the internet," Kareth said.
Each provincial election commission has been given until April 14 to submit the results of vote counting to the KPU in Jakarta.
"That's why we will take the initiative by sending people to take the results from regental election commissions whose computers didn't work," he said.
Preliminary results in the province showed the Democratic Party and the Prosperous Peace Party (PDS) in the lead, ahead of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle and the Golkar Party, the biggest polling parties in 1999.
The province reported on Monday election delays in 163 polling stations located in remote areas, including the Jayawijaya mountains, due to problems in transporting election materials. These areas can only by air or on foot as there is no road access.
Meanwhile, about 200 security guards who were deployed in polling stations in Jayapura on Monday, staged a protest in front of the Papua provincial KPU office on Tuesday, demanding their payment.
Antara reported the guards claimed they had not received their honorarium of Rp 40,000 (US$4.7) per day from the election commission.
They also asked the commission whether they would be employed during the presidential election on July 5.