Struggle to complete vote count continues

Struggle to complete vote count continues

JAKARTA (JP): The struggle to complete the vote count
continued on Thursday with subdistrict elections committees still
tallying ballots, as fatigue added to the burden of inexperienced
committee officials.

In Bogor, West Java, as of Thursday the township elections
committee had only received the vote count from eight of the 68
subdistrict committees, while the Bogor regency elections
committee had received ballot results from eight of the 415
subdistrict committees.

The sluggishness of the count spurned the township elections
committee to send a special team to check on the work of the
district and subdistrict committees.

Township committee head Didi Wiardi said mistakes abounded in
the reports received from the subdistricts. "Many of the figures
in the documents do not match."

"This is probably because many of the elections committee
workers stayed up all night," he said.

Didi said it would not be easy to change mistakes found in the
reports. "All parties must attend the meeting and agree to any
changes. This needs time. It is better that the counts are a bit
late, but free and fair."

In Bogor township, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle
(PDI Perjuangan) was in the lead with 18,225 votes for the House
of Representatives, followed by Golkar; while in Bogor regency,
Golkar was leading with 91,132 votes for the House, trailed by
PDI Perjuangan.

There was good news from Central Java where at least counting
at subdistrict polling stations were completed.

Achmad Rofai, a provincial election committee member in charge
of technical affairs, told Antara that all ballot boxes from
47,674 polling stations had been sent to district offices. Cross
checking data would then take four days to complete and would
reach the National Election Committee by June 17 after result
reports were checked at the regional and provincial levels.

But Central Java's prosecutor's office has begun to check
reports of violations including vote buying. Police chief
Maj.Gen. Nurfaizi said there were 102 incidences since the
campaign period apart from thousands of circulars discrediting
parties up until poll day, which is prohibited.

In West Sumatra all regencies except Bukittinggi have sent
their results to the provincial committee.

But in South Aceh, Aceh, 480 of 837 polling places
have yet to report poll results to the regency elections
committee, Antara reported on Thursday. This was because of
delays in holding the polls in the volatile province.

The polls in six villages in the Kluet Utara district of South
Aceh were delayed until Tuesday because of threats against poll
officials.

In Irian Jaya, polls were also delayed in some areas.
Jayawijaya regional elections committee chairman Demianus
Djehaduk told The Jakarta Post on Thursday that ballots were even
sent by plane to Kenyam district on polling day, he said, adding
it would have taken at least two days for the ballots to arrive
in the district had they been delivered by foot.

"It may be after June 20 before we are able to send in our
results," Demianus said, adding he hoped the General Elections
Commission understood their difficulties.

In Yogyakarta, only 70 percent of votes had reached the
provincial committee. In case of a discrepancy of even one vote a
visit to the concerned polling station would be needed, given the
absence of telephones. On Thursday a special team was sent to
Gunung Kidul regency to assist tallying.

In Maumere, East Nusa Tenggara, residents said they did not
mind the slow vote count as long as the results were honest.

Former Golkar polling place chairman Wilem Beda said in past
elections rapid vote counting was made possible by widespread
fraud, usually to the benefit of Golkar.

In Sikka regency, Golkar protested because a blind woman who
told a poll committee member she wanted to vote for Golkar was
allegedly guided to vote for PDI Perjuangan. Someone who
allegedly witnessed the episode reported the incident to the
local Golkar office. The committee member denied the charge.
(24/34/yac/har/anr/swa)