PKS looks set to be main faction in Jakarta council

Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The latest count on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. showed the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) with a projected 17 of 75 seats in the Jakarta City Council (DPRD), followed by the Democratic Party with a projected 15 seats.

The Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPUD) announced it has counted approximately 94 percent of the votes cast on April 5 at 23,877 polling stations across Jakarta.

With only 6 percent of the ballots left to count, KPUD chairman Mohamad Taufik expects to announce the final results within the next two days at the latest, already several days behind schedule.

The 75 council seats at stake -- eight from Central Jakarta, 21 from East Jakarta, 16 from South Jakarta, 18 from West Jakarta and 12 from North Jakarta and the Thousands Islands -- compare to the 84 seats in the current City Council.

"Although we have not completed the counting yet, we confirm that the PKS and the Democratic Party are leading the vote tally, leaving the other parties behind," Taufik said.

Although the ballot counting for the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) has still not been completed, the top four candidates for Jakarta -- Mooryati Soedibyo, Sarwono Kusumaatmadja, Biem Triani Benyamin and Marwan Batubara -- have secured their seats on the council.

Responding to questions on differences between the data from the General Elections Commission (KPU) and the Jakarta KPUD, KPUD member Riza Patria said both commissions were receiving their figures from polling stations.

"However, the KPUD has to validate the data before it can publish it for public consumption, while the KPU publishes the data directly on its website, leading to differences in the number of votes," said Riza, an IT expert.

Taufik also said that of approximately six million registered voters in the city, 4,542,726 people cast their votes.

To date, there have been 354,252 invalid ballot papers for the House of Representatives and 385,757 for the DPD. The largest number of invalid ballot papers occurred in the vote for the DPRD, with 719,333.

The KPUD guaranteed that there had been no interference in the ballot counting process.

"If any of the political parties find the results do not match with their own data, the executives can file complaints with us, but they must bring hard proof," Taufik said.

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