PDI, PPP struggle to field election scrutineers

PDI, PPP struggle to field election scrutineers

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), doomed to
fail in the election because of its unpopular government-backed
leadership, struggled to field scrutineers at polling stations
yesterday.

The United Development Party (PPP) was reported to be a few
scrutineers short, while the dominant Golkar had scrutineers at
every station.

Under electoral law, polling station officials must seek
community volunteers to scrutinize ballot counting if the parties
fail to field their own scrutineers.

Officials said ballot counting proceeded at many polling
stations without PDI scrutineers.

In Surabaya, where supporters of the two PDI factions had
often fought in the streets, only one of the 12 polling stations
visited by governor Basofi Soedirman had a PDI scrutineer.

Basofi, who chairs the East Java provincial electoral
committee, said that many PDI supporters had been too afraid of
violence to act as scrutineers.

East Java PDI chief Dimmy Haryanto said earlier there was no
way he could provide scrutineers for the province's 52,000
polling stations.

He told the government that polling station officials should
seek volunteers to scrutinize ballot counting on behalf of the
PDI.

Basofi, a famous Dangdut folk singer, said people loyal to the
PDI's deposed leader, Megawati Soekarnoputri, might have
terrorized rival PDI supporters to stop them acting as
scrutineers.

Megawati, barred from standing for election, announced last
Thursday that she would not vote in the election because she had
lost the party's chair to Soerjadi in an illegal congress. Many
of her loyalists have followed her example.

There were no PDI scrutineers at the 731 polling stations in
the mayoralty of Yogyakarta, according to the local electoral
committee.

This contradicted a statement by the Yogyakarta deputy
electoral chief Col. AR Gaffar that all three parties had
selected scrutineers for every polling station.

In Yogyakarta's regencies, the PPP and PDI fielded few
scrutineers.

Only 448 scrutineers, mostly Golkar's, had been registered
with the local government to cover the 1,344 polling stations in
Sleman regency. In Gunungkidul, only 710 people had been
registered to scrutinize ballot counting at 1,237 stations.

The absence of PDI scrutineers was obvious in Jakarta, with
none turning up at the 10 polling stations near the governor's
office.

Pradjoko of the South Jakarta electoral committee, which ran
2,737 stations, said the stations lacked 178 scrutineers: 69 from
PPP and 109 from PDI. There were only 12 PDI scrutineers at the
31 polling stations in Senayan.

In East Flores, East Nusa Tenggara, about 200 PDI cadres
protested that the local electoral committee had made it hard for
the party to field scrutineers. They threatened to protest again
in the regency's capital of Larantuka today.

PPP chief Ismail Hasan Metareum claimed that his party had had
trouble registering scrutineers in some areas.

In Wonogiri, Central Java, at least 140 PPP scrutineers quit
after local authorities threatened to make their future
administrative dealings difficult, Antara reported.

The news agency quoted the PPP Semarang chapter's deputy
secretary, Harminto Agustono, as saying that party officials told
Wonogiri officials that they would take the case to Jakarta.

Electoral committee members said there were few PDI
scrutineers at polling stations in Semarang.

In Bandung, PPP officials protested that the regent had
slashed the party's number of scrutineers from 2,000 to 1,000,
who had to cover the regency's 4,979 polling stations.

West Java Governor R. Nuriana blamed this shortfall on the
PPP.

"According to the rules, it (the PPP) should have proposed its
scrutineers long before the election began," he said after
inspecting polling stations in the towns of Tasikmalaya and
Serang from a helicopter. (pan/12/aan/yac/har)