Govt to grill KPU on slow ballot count

Erwida Maulia ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Mon, 04/20/2009 4:03 PM  |  National

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has ordered Home Minister Mardiyanto to grill the General Elections Commission (KPU) over its slow ballot count.

The President said the government was ready to help the KPU finish the count on time.

“I've been following news that the KPU, despite its use of an IT system, has been seen as doing the count slowly. Some even said the manual count would have been faster," Yudhoyono said Monday while opening a Cabinet meeting on elections at the Presidential Office.

“Therefore I've asked the home minister to establish communications with the KPU in this regard, and to ask for an explanation on whether the KPU can comply with the set timetable. It should be able to."

The President added the government did not intend to usurp the authority of the elections commission, only that it needed to ensure the vote count would finish on time.

He said he had ordered regional administrations to hand over their vote counts and troubled voter lists to the KPU, and would ask for their reports on Friday.

Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Widodo A.S. said the government was concerned about the slow ballot count, with votes counted as of Monday morning only reaching some 12 million votes.

"We believe the timetable can be complied with," Widodo told reporters shortly after the Cabinet meeting.

The meeting also discussed the settlements of elections violations cases filed by a number of political parties and civil society groups.

Widodo said the Elections Supervisory Body (Bawaslu), the National Police and the Attorney General's Office had established the Integrated Law Enforcement Center to specially tackle criminal cases related to the elections.

The President, meanwhile, said the government should be "responsive" to the cases filed, be they civil or criminal.

He also reiterated that this year's elections, with the number of contesting parties and some new rulings, were more complicated than previous elections, thus giving rise to more problems.

This, however, should not lead to unnecessary conflicts, the President said.

Widodo said in general the whole elections process ran smoothly, except in Papua, where there were "minor criminal disturbances unrelated to parties' competition in elections".

He added the Papua situation was under control, and that the legal process was ongoing.

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