Poll rigging has begun, PPP chief claims

JAKARTA (JP): United Development Party (PPP) chief Ismail Hasan Metareum said Wednesday he had evidence a government official had begun fixing the May 29 poll results.

After a leadership meeting to review the first week of campaigning, Ismail said his party was worried the general election committee was involved in poll rigging.

Ismail said a subdistrict head in a Sumatra province had arranged results. He refused to name the province.

Quoting a document, Ismail said Golkar was allotted 86.29 percent of the vote, the PPP 7.00 percent and the Indonesian Democratic Party 6.71 percent.

"The subdistrict head admitted to fixing the poll result," Ismail said.

He said he had given the evidence to the minister of home affairs, Moch. Yogie S.M.

He said that judging from PPP's large campaign turnouts, it looked like the party would do better in this election than in 1992 because there was a correlation between campaign turnouts and the percentage of the vote received.

In 1977 PPP got one million votes to Golkar's 980,000. PPP had huge campaign turnouts that year.

The Moslem-oriented party is aiming for 96 seats in the House of Representatives. It has 62 seats now.

Ismail criticized Golkar for mobilizing civil servants and students to attend its campaigns.

"We have received reports from our branch offices that government employees and school students have been mobilized to attend every Golkar election campaign event," he said.

PPP's deputy secretary-general Mohammad Buang said that in Riau, schools and government offices were deserted when Golkar campaigned.

Buang said people who had business with the manpower and religious affairs ministries' local offices were not looked after because most employees were at campaign events.

Buang said elementary and high schools in Riau were also closed early this week because teachers and students were asked to attend Golkar rallies.

"We were really surprised that the government rejected the idea of holding the general elections on a holiday. It is a shame that government offices and schools are not working when Golkar holds campaign events," he said.

Ismail said four PPP branches in Yogyakarta have been instructed to continue campaigning after a week-long boycott after an attack on two PPP offices on April 30.

Five PPP Jakarta chapter branches were also temporarily absent from campaigning after choosing not to take part in last Friday's campaign.

The city-wide boycott was a show of solidarity against the police who refused to issue a campaign permit for the PPP's South Jakarta chapter. (imn/aan)