Recounting in Central, East Jakarta completed
Recounting in Central, East Jakarta completed
JAKARTA (JP): The Provincial Elections Committee here
announced on Monday that the ballot recounting process in Central
and East Jakarta has been completed.
Muchammad Taufik, chairman of the committee's program
division, said on Monday that the local mayoralty election
committees had declared the re-count complete after making
several necessary corrections based on their findings of
violations.
"We're now waiting for their reports," he said.
The committees in the city's three other mayoralties will
start the recounting process beginning on Tuesday, Taufik added,
without saying how long this would take.
The Jakarta Provincial Elections Committee last Friday
instructed all district polling committees in the capital to
recount ballot papers because of irregularities in the initial
tallying.
The following day, Taufik abruptly corrected the decision by
saying that the choice of recounting mechanism was the
responsibility of each district committee, meaning they could
either reopen boxes and count all ballot papers again, or simply
check the tally against earlier documented counts.
However, when asked for confirmation of the completion of the
tally, a member of the East Jakarta poll committee, Dadang
Iskandar, insisted that the recounting process in the mayoralty
was not yet finished.
"We still need to recheck and recount as well the ballots from
three of the 10 district committees here. I think we will only
complete the process tomorrow," Dadang told The Jakarta Post late
Monday.
According to him, most of the irregularities reported in the
mayoralty were discrepancies between different ballot tallies at
different levels.
"The irregularities were mostly caused by errors of people,
who have been burdened by heavy workloads, and not because of
political reasons," Dadang said.
Taufik also revealed that the provincial elections committee
has found irregularities at almost all subdistricts and districts
in South Jakarta.
He showed reporters some of the reports of vote discrepancies,
such as those found in the subdistricts of Gandaria Utara, Rawa
Barat, Cipete Utara, Selong and Cilandak Barat.
Taufik's remarks sparked anger from the local committee
members.
The chairman of the Central Jakarta mayoralty elections
committee, M. Mukson, criticized the provincial committee as
being too reactive in making statements.
"I think they're always too fast to make remarks or
decisions," he said, saying that the provincial committee only
made things more complicated.
Mukson suggested that Taufik and his colleagues "shut their
mouths tightly" to allow the local committee members to complete
their work.(ind)