Papua poll officials charged with fraud

Nethy Dharma Somba, Jayapura

Repeating an old trick of their New Order counterparts, two subdistrict poll officials in Timika, Papua province, allegedly pierced thousands of ballot papers to benefit Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Jusuf Kalla.

The act was discovered by the local authorities on Monday and the two were immediately arrested for police questioning.

A senior police officer said on Wednesday that after questioning, police investigators had named as suspects two poll officials, Edward Wenda and Pasmin Weya, for unlawfully perforating 3,200 ballot papers allocated to four polling stations in Kwamki Lama hamlet, Timika. The town is located some 750 kilometers southeast of Jayapura, the capital of Papua.

The act had allowed Susilo and Kalla to "win" by a landslide at polling stations 11, 12, 13 and 14 in Kwamki Lama, according to Mimika Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Paulus Waterpauw who oversees Timika municipality.

The two suspects confessed that they committed the wrongdoing after they had been offered a substantial sum of money by the Susilo-Kalla campaign team in Timika, said Paulus, without disclosing the total amount involved. "We are still looking into the matter -- whether they were really offered the money," said Paulus.

He said that the two were charged with depriving the public of the right to vote, thus violating Law No. 12/2003 on elections, which carries a maximum sentence of six months' imprisonment.

The fraud was spotted on Monday when the two poll officials handed over boxes containing ballot papers to the head of New Mimika district poll committee, Marthen Sawai.

Marthen was puzzled at receiving the ballot boxes, as the two handed them over to him at around 9:30 on Monday morning, when other polling stations had only just opened for voting. He immediately reported the alleged fraud to officials at Timika Election Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu), who then informed the local police.

Such electoral fraud is not new; it was often perpetrated by poll officials during the tenure of the New Order government, to favor the ruling Golkar Party. The misdeeds were never publicized at that time as the country was under the tight grip of then president Soeharto.