Polls wrapped up Friday, results scheduled Monday

Sat, 04/18/2009 2:21 PM  |  City

Jakarta polling body (KPUD) member Aminullah said Friday the polls for the City Council and the city's Regional Representative Council (DPD) finished on schedule.

He said all District Election Committees (PPK) in the city were expected to complete their vote counting Friday evening; some had even sent their official poll results to the municipal KPUD.

"Given this progress, we hoping to announce the official results Monday. We will start telling the public which legislative candidates won the elections," Aminullah said.

Earlier this week, the General Elections Commission (KPU) extended the deadline for vote counting at the district level from April 15 to April 19 and at the provincial level to April 20, after it many local polling bodies warned they would not be able to complete their vote counting on time.

There are more than 7 million Jakartan registered voters in the 2009 elections.

The East Jakarta municipality has become the most crowded electoral district with 2,028,055 voters, while the Thousand Island regency only has 18,802 voters casting their votes in 50 polling booths (TPS), including four mobile ones.

Aminullah said the KPUD had so far only received a complete poll result from the Thousand Islands regency.

The Post's found all the PPK in the areas of South Jakarta and Central Jakarta had finished their vote counting on Friday, but not all had submitted their official results to the municipal KPUD.

Indah, a polling official at the South Jakarta KPUD, said the KPUD had received reports from nine districts and was waiting for one more report from the Pancoran district.

Siahaan from the Central Jakarta KPUD, said the KPUD had yet to receive reports from its eight PPKs.

"I expect them to arrive tonight," he said.

As of 6.30 p.m. Friday, the KPU's poll showed the Democratic Party topping the Jakarta poll with close to 36 percent of votes, followed by the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) with close to 18 percent and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) with almost 10 percent.

Given the interim result, councilor Denny Taloga, who is also the deputy head of the Democratic Party's general elections board (Bapilu), predicted his party would secure 35 seats in the City Council.

"This is a great achievement for the party," he said.

The DPD vote count in several districts showed deputy speaker of the City Council Dani Anwar, treasurer of the Nahdlatul Ulama's (NU) Jakarta branch Djan Faridz, senior politician A. M. Fatwa, current DPD member Biem Triani Benyamin and less popular figure Pardi as the top five standing. (JP/hwa)

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