KPU completed the count

Tags: kpu
The General Elections Commission (KPU) looks set to finish counting votes from April's nationwide ballot today and will announce the final results to the public tomorrow.

I Gusti Putu Artha, a member of the polling body, confirmed Thursday that the polling body had finished the vote count in 29 provinces two days before the scheduled deadline.

The final tallies in Bengkulu, Central Sulawesi and Papua are waiting verification before the overall result can be approved in a plenary session Friday.

"The vote count in North Maluku will be conducted Friday morning and completed that same day," he said in Jakarta on Thursday.

According to data from the KPU manual count, as of May 7 the Democratic Party (PD) was in front with 20.2 million votes (21.04 percent), followed by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) with 13.9 million votes (14.52 percent).

The Golkar Party slipped to third position with 13.7 million votes (14.23 percent) while the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) retained fourth with 7.8 million votes (8.16 percent). The National Mandate Party (PAN) ended up in fifth place with 5.8 million votes (6.95 percent).

Earlier Thursday afternoon, the KPU chairman said the commission was set to wrap up the manual count of the legislative election by Thursday night and still had time to calculate the distribution of the House of Representatives seats on May 8 and May 9.

Even though the commission has been working overtime, inaccurate data from local poll bodies (KPUD) has sparked debates and protests from various political parties, the KPU and the Elections Supervisory Board (Bawaslu).

Most of these disputes have remained unresolved. KPU chairman Abdul Hafiz Anshary said debate among KPU members, the Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) and party witnesses over the election results often occurred and he was optimistic the commission could settle the matters.

"The manual count results will still stand as legitimate even if party witnesses refuse to sign the dossiers," he said.

Wirdyaningsih, a Bawaslu member, said even though the KPU finished the manual count on time, the result would nevertheless be flawed.

"The legitimacy of the election results is worrying. Nearing the deadline, the KPU had the tendency to find a quick solution in verifying the results by settling protests from parties in the Constitutional Court *MK*," she said.

She said the KPU had the authority to announce the results even if political parties refused to sign the dossiers.

"If they decide to announce the flawed results, only the Constitutional court has the authority to annul the results and call for a re-election or a re-count. This could happen if protesters had strong enough evidence that systemic violations occurred during the election," she said.

A number of election contestants, including minor players, have threatened to reject the results from the legislative polls, claiming the poor management of the election, damaged voting materials, ballot paper mix-ups and the slow vote count brought the results into question.(JP)