Sutiyoso's reelection marred with delays, security threats
Novan Iman Santosa and Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Governor Sutiyoso has been elected to another five year term with a commanding lead of 47 out of 84 votes on Wednesday although the City Council's special plenary meeting was marred with a series of delays due to security threats from anti-Sutiyoso demonstrators.
The public, however, still has the chance to file their complaints with the City Council's election committee during a three-day public screening period from Thursday until Saturday.
"The committee will review all complaints filed against the newly-elected pair during the public screening period," said the committee chairman Muhammad Suwardi of the National Mandate Party (PAN) faction.
"We will focus on complaints dealing with moral issues. If the allegation can be proven, we can dismiss the elected pair."
If everything goes smoothly, Lt. Gen. (ret) Sutiyoso and the elected vice governor Fauzi Bowo, who is the City Secretary, will be installed on Oct. 7.
The two defeated six other pairs of candidates. Tarmidi Suhardjo and Abdillah Toha of the PAN faction secured a distant 13 votes while Edy Waluyo and Achmad Suaidy of PPP won 11 votes.
Achmad Heryawan and Igo Ilham of the Justice Party (PK) faction received only four votes while Endang Darmawan-Dadang Hamdani of the Unity in Diversity Party (PBI) faction won three votes.
Mahfudz Djaelani-Doli Diapary Siregar of the United Party (PP) and Marzuki Usman-Halim Asyhari of the National Awakening Party also got three votes each.
Sutiyoso, a suspect in the July 27, 1996 tragedy, said he had calculated early on that they would win.
"We have won support from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), the Golkar Party and surely the Indonesian Military/National Police factions," he told reporters.
He denied allegations that money politics practices were behind his triumph.
PDI Perjuangan has 30 members in the Council while the Indonesian Military/National Police have nine and Golkar has eight councillors respectively.
PDI Perjuangan's chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri's support of Sutiyoso had caused an internal rift in the party, especially in the Jakarta chapter.
The election started late as protesters had blocked both the City Council entrance on Jl. Kebon Sirih and the City Hall entrance on Jl. Medan Merdeka Selatan.
Both buildings are located back to back on a block and are connected through a single access.
The session, which was slated to start at 10 a.m., was adjourned several times before the councillors finally cast their ballots just minutes after 4 p.m.
The election lasted for about one hour and a half.
It was first opened at 10:35, only to be adjourned for about one hour as only 52 councillors attended the session. It fell short of five needed to reach the quorum of two-thirds from the total number of 85 councillors.
When it resumed, there were only 84 councillors attending the meeting as Saud Rachman of the United Development Party (PPP) faction was suffering from a stroke.
Several councillors pleaded with the floor to give attention to what was happening outside the City Council building.
The councillors could clearly hear the sounds of tear-gas and rubber bullets being fired as police officers tried to disperse thousands of unruly protesters on Jl. Kebon Sirih, where the City Council building is located.
Chairman of the meeting, Suwardi, then decided to go out to meet the protesters and asked the security personnel not to take repressive actions.
The session was again adjourned when 23 representatives of the protesters were allowed to enter the balcony of the plenary meeting hall and shouted at councillors not to reelect Sutiyoso.
Councillors started to cast their ballots after police officers cleared the protesters out of the plenary meeting hall.
The protesters peacefully left the site after the election was over.