Poll watchdog to visit regions over violations

JAKARTA (JP): The official Election Supervisory Committee said Friday it would send teams out to regions to check up on violations during Monday's elections.

Mulyana W. Kusumah, deputy chairman of the committee, told a media conference that the supervisory committee, however, could not elaborate on the regions to be visited. Investigations would start before the announcement of the official vote counting results on June 21.

Satya Arinanto, secretary-general of the committee, said the first team would leave for North Sulawesi on Tuesday.

"One of the committee members, Ramlan Surbakti, will leave for Bolaang Mongondow on Tuesday," Satya said after a two-hour closed meeting with members of the General Elections Commission (KPU) and the National Elections Committee (PPI).

Reports said voters cast ballots more than once and there were also ballot sheets that were already punctured before being folded and handed to voters in Bolaang Mongondow.

The Independent Election Monitoring Committee (KIPP) discovered 19,504 violations during Monday's balloting in the polling places it monitored throughout the country.

KIPP also called for a meeting between the Supreme Court, KPU, PPI and poll monitoring bodies to discuss the violations during the campaigning and Monday's elections.

Mulyana, who is also KIPP's secretary-general, said that Friday's meeting was to discuss the public outcry against the slowness of the vote counting process.

On Friday, results showed the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) retaining its strong lead, leaving the ruling Golkar party trailing in third place but not far from National Awakening Party (PKB) in second.

In the West Nusa Tenggara capital of Mataram, a poll in a village in Jonggat district Central Lombok was repeated on Friday following a three-day debate regarding violations.

The first repeated poll in the province, which took place in the Taman Baru polling place in Pengenjek village, was directly observed by the chairman of the Provincial Elections Committee, A. Taqiuddin.

The poll was repeated because local poll workers stopped the process at 2:15 p.m. on Monday citing the deadline was 2 p.m., while many were waiting in line to cast a vote. The existing rule is polling places should remain open until all registered people have voted although they should try to finish by 2 p.m. The local poll workers ignored protests by witnesses and observers, and the village head intervened to stop the process.

Demands to repeat the poll have also been raised from the regencies of West and East Lombok, while Sumbawa and Bima submitted reports of suspected "money politics" by Golkar Party.

In the Central Sulawesi capital of Palu, the local chapter of the University Network for Free and Fair Election (UNFREL) said in Toili district, Murad Husain, a local businessman, was found distributing Rp 5,000 to people to vote for Golkar on Monday. (38/49/byg)