ELECTION COMMISSION RACING AGAINST TIME TO MEET VOTE RECAPITULATION DEADLINE by Fardah

     Jakarta, May 8, 2014 (Antara)-  The General Elections Commission (KPU) has been working extra hard lately to meet the deadline of vote count and recapitulation  of the results of the legislative elections which was held in the country's 33 provinces on April 9, 2014.

        The KPU earlier decided to delay  the deadline of the vote recapitulation from May 6 to May 9, 2014, following a number of protests and debates involving political parties' election witnesses and the election executors at local levels in a number of regions.

        Based on the Law No. 8/2012 on General Elections of Members of the House of Representatives (DPR), the Regional Representative Council (DPD) and Regional Legislative Council (DPRD), the results of the elections should be known nationally 30 days after the election day at the latest.

        As the legislative elections were held throughout the country on April 9, the KPU had previously set May 6 as the  deadline of the national vote count and  recapitulation. However, the deadline was later delayed to May 9.

        "We decided the deadline for the vote recapitulation to have ample time for administrative preparations for determination of the legislative elections' results," KPU Chairman Husni Kamil Manik said.

        The KPU has started  the plenary meeting on the vote count and recapitulation since April 26, 2014. And so far, until May 8 in the morning,  KPU has concluded the vote recapitulation process for 21 provinces, out of the country's 33 provinces.

         The 21 provinces include Bangka Belitung, Banten, Jambi, Gorontalo, West Kalimantan, West Sumatra, Bali, Central Kalimantan, Aceh, West Nusa Tenggara, Central Sulawesi, South Kalimantan, South Sulawesi,  Lampung, West Papua, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Riau Islands,  Central Java, and Papua.

        In nine other provinces, the validation was postponed because some witnesses of political parties lodged protests over alleged frauds. The provinces are West Java, North Maluku, East Nusa Tenggara, Southeast Sulawesi, South  Sumatra, West Sulawesi, North Sulawesi,  East Kalimantan, and Bengkulu.

        The postponements were based on the recommendations from the Election Supervisory Board (Bawaslu) and the local Election Supervisory Committees (Panwaslu), which called for re-voting in regions such as Pamekasan and Sampang Districts in East Java Province, and South Nias District in North Sumatra Province, 
   Besides,  two provinces - Maluku, and  North Sumatra - have not submitted the legislative elections' vote recapitulation results to the national KPU.

        Despite those challenges, KPU Commissioner Arief Budiman on May 8 expressed his optimism that the Commission would be able to finish the work and fulfill the deadline on May 9.

         "Until now, we are still optimistic that tomorrow the results will be announced. Because only North Sumatra and Maluku are not yet being discussed, while some issues have been given notes for further check and recheck. So, the discussions will not take long time,"
   "In total, there are 77 legislative (DPR) electoral districts and 33 regional representative (DPD) electoral districts. We still need to finish 24 DPR electoral districts and four DPD electoral districts. We are working hard now to finish them until tomorrow evening. We are optimistic that we will be able to finish it," he stated.

           The shortcoming of election executors at the regional level which could not handle the protests and left the problems to the national level, has been blamed as the main factor for the delay of the vote recapitulation at the national KPU.

        "The problems that should have been addressed at the regional level, have been handed to the national level," KPU Commissioner Hadar Nafis Gumay said recently.

         Gumay said the KPU planned to replace all election executors at local levels who did not perform professionally when organizing the legislative elections.

         "We will evaluate them (the election executors) and replace them with better quality people to organize the presidential election in July," he added.

         The national KPU also planned to give short technical and administrative courses to those who will handle the presidential election implementation at the local level.

        "Multi-tiered supervision of election executors will also be carried out at the local level, because courses and trainings alone are not enough, as proven during the recent legislative elections," he stated.

         Indonesia's parliamentary elections, the largest and most complicated single-day poll in the world, ran peacefully on April 9,  with the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) took an early lead in the voting.

         More than 185.8 million voters spread across thousands of islands, which stretch some 4,800 km from east to west, were registered to vote in over than 545 thousand polling stations during the elections, in the world's third largest democracy, following India and the United States.

         This year's parliamentary elections saw participation by 12 national political parties and three local parties in Aceh Province. The number of participating parties has fallen from 44 political parties in the 2009 elections.

         In this year's parliamentary elections, some 6,607 candidates were contesting for 560 seats in the House of Representatives (DPR).    
   In addition, there were elections held for the 132 seats of the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) at the national level; 2,112 of the provincial parliamentary (DPRD I) seats; and 16,895 seats for the district/municipality -level legislative assemblies (DPRD II).

         Unofficial tallies, or the quick vote count, however, showed that PDIP is in first place with 19-20 percent of the nation's votes, followed by Golkar (14-15 percent), and Gerindra (11-12 percent), and the ruling Democratic party (9-10 percent).

         The fifth position was won by PKB by securing 9.07 percent of the votes, followed by PAN in the sixth position with 7.47 percent, PPP in the seventh place with 7.08 percent, PKS in the eighth place with 6.61 percent, the National Democrat Party (Nasdem) with 6.77 percent, the People's Conscience Party (Hanura) with 5.26 percent, PBB with 1.36 percent and the Indonesian Prosperous and Unity Party (PKPI) with 0.97 percent. 
   By law, a political party is required to win at least 25 percent of the total votes or a minimum of 20 percent of the 560 seats contested in the House of Representatives (DPR) before it can nominate its presidential candidate for the presidential election, which is scheduled to be held on July 9.

        Since none of the parties are likely to win over 20 percent  of the total votes, they must establish coalition to be able to nominate their presidential candidates. They are now struggling to find the right partners.

        They are eager to know the official results of  the vote count and recapitulation  by the KPU so they could decide their coalition strategies. ***1***
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(T.SYS/A/F. Assegaf/Suharto) 08-05-2014 23:21:22