Violations rampant: Poll watchdog
JAKARTA (JP): An independent poll watchdog said yesterday the election had proceeded smoothly but had been marred by widespread electoral violations and public opposition.
The Independent Election Monitoring Committee's chairman, Goenawan Mohamad, said violations had happened in at least 21 percent of polling stations, monitored by about 8,000 volunteers.
The poll watchdog monitored about 3,000 polling stations in 47 towns in 17 provinces, and intensely scrutinized 609 other polling stations in 13 towns.
"The violations were systematic because the election was organized by government officials who have to maintain the single domination of Golkar," Goenawan said.
"It's very difficult to differentiate government bureaucrats as Golkar members from election administrators and supervisors," he added.
The minister of home affairs is the ex-officio chairman of the General Elections Institute, and the attorney general is the ex- officio chairman of the Election Supervision Committee. All top government officials are Golkar functionaries.
The poll watchdog's provisional findings revealed that double or higher multiple voting and discriminatory treatment of voters comprised most of the violations.
Other irregularities included intimidation and evictions of scrutineers, obscured counting, violence and voting by unregistered voters.
The watchdog said the government should legally sanction violators.
"This is essential if the principle of public accountability is to be upheld. This will demonstrate that there is political legitimacy and that people's sovereignty has been respected," its statement said.
Goenawan said public opposition to the election was obvious because of the large number of spoiled ballot papers which coincided with a drastic drop in the share of the vote gained by the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), under its new government- recognized leadership.
The PDI, whose leader Megawati Soekarnoputri was replaced by Soerjadi in a government-backed congress last year, is facing its worst defeat ever. By 4:00 p.m. yesterday, it had gained only three million of the 103 million votes counted.
"I suspect the boycott factor was actually the real third place getter in the election," Goenawan said.
More than 2.6 million of the votes cast in Central Java and more than 317,000 in Yogyakarta had been declared invalid by the time both provinces finished ballot counting yesterday.
Megawati, whose faction was barred from standing for election, announced last week that she would not vote and urged her supporters not to vote for the government-recognized PDI faction.
Goenawan said the government should learn from the boycott trend and adjust the political system to accommodate marginal groups.
The poll watchdog expects to complete its final report within two weeks to a month.
The United Development Party (PPP) announced more violations. Zein Badjeber, a PPP deputy chairman, told a press conference that the party had discovered 89 violations by Thursday evening based on reports from its provincial branches.
Zein said that many PPP scrutineers had not been allowed to watch ballot counting. "They received approval from their respective regents only at the last minute, preventing them from reporting to electoral committee officials in time," he said.
PPP scrutineers had had the same problem in West Java, said the party's provincial chairman, Abbas Pranajaya. He said local electoral committee officials had given "many unreasonable excuses to stop PPP scrutineers doing their job".
"Our scrutineers were evicted from polling stations simply because they failed to show photocopies of their ID cards and copies of regent approvals," he said.
Other violations included multiple voting by a subdistrict secretary in Riau, potential double voting by teachers in Central Jakarta and widespread intimidation of students and teachers to vote Golkar, Zein said.
PPP deputy chairman Yusuf Syakir said Golkar had given "incentives" to government employees, especially in Jakarta, of between Rp 60,000 (US$24.57) and Rp 100,000, or a full months salary to support Golkar.
PPP secretary-general Tosari Wijaya said that none of the votes at polling stations in six districts in Sampang, Madura, had been counted. In addition none of the votes had been counted at 1,019 polling stations in Sumenep, Madura, and several stations in Southeast Sulawesi, Lampung, West Sumatra and South Sumatra. (team)