M

easures are being taken to beef up security in Lampung after quick counts revealed that several regional elections were closely run, sparking fears of conflicts between supporter groups, the provincial election commission (KPUD) says.

“We have asked the Lampung Police to increase security, especially in Mesuji, which has a history of conflict,” KPUD Lampung chairman Edwin Hanibal said on Thursday.

Edwin said he had informed all of the leading candidate tickets about the quick-count results, and had told them to wait for the KPUD to conduct manual counts.

“Although quick counts conducted by survey institutions are considered academic, it’s the KPUD’s final count that will decide the winners of the elections,” he said.

The three Lampung regencies of Mesuji, Pringsewu and Tulangbawang in Lampung held elections recently.

In Mesuji, a quick count showed a small difference in votes won by leading candidate tickets Khamamik—Ismail Iskak nominated by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and Iskandar Maliki—Agus Setio nominated by a coalition of the National Mandate Party (PAN), the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the Reform Star Party (PBR).

A quick count conducted by the Mesuji regency administration showed that Iskandar—Agus had won 61,733 votes and Khamamik—Ismail 61,500 votes. There are 129,484 eligible voters in the region.

In the Pringsewu regency election, a quick count showed that Ririn Kuswantar—Subhan, nominated by the Golkar Party, had won 36.6 percent of the votes and that Sujadi Sadat Handitya nominated by the PDI-P had won 36.3 percent.

Observers have expressed concern that the very close results could incite conflicts.

Separately in Musi Banyuasin regency, South Sumatra, quick counts conducted by three different survey institutions showed that incumbent Pahri Azhari and running mate Beni Hernedi had won, beating out two other candidate tickets.

Sunarto Ciptoharjono of the LSKP, one of the survey institutes, said that the Pahri—Beni ticket had won 50.9 percent of votes according to LSKP’s quick count, while Dodi Reza Alex—Islan Hanura had won 46.2 percent and Sulgani Pakuali—Imam Sajari 2.9 percent.

A similar composition of votes won by the three pairs of candidates was also shown by quick counts conducted by two other survey institutions: the Indonesian Survey Institution (LSI) Saiful Muzani and LSI Denny J.A.

Responding to the results, the Pahri—Beni pair said they were grateful to the people of Musi Banyuasin for placing their trust in them to lead the regency.