T

he Aceh Independent Election Commission (KIP) has officially announced the election of Zaini Abdulah and Muzakir Manaf as governor and deputy governor for the 2012–2017 term of office.

The announcement was made on Tuesday during KIP’s plenary session held at the Aceh provincial legislative council.

The result of the vote counting from the 23 regencies and municipalities across Aceh showed that Zaini-Muzakir won 1,327,695, or 55.78 percent, of the valid votes.

The plenary meeting, attended by the Aceh Election Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu) and poll watchers, was suspended several times to await data from KIP members from Gayo Luwes and Simeulue.

“It was due to technical reasons such as the long distance to Banda Aceh,” said Aceh KIP deputy head Ilham Saputra.

The session was also suspended when a magnitude-5.1 quake shook the Aceh legislative building.

KIP has allowed three days for those who oppose the election results to file for lawsuits and objections at the Constitutional Court.

“Filing an objection is in line with the laws, which we must abide by,” said Ilham.

Meanwhile, Langsa and Sabang mayoralties and West Aceh, Southwest Aceh and Nagan Raya regencies will hold second-round elections after none of the candidates were able to get 30 percent of the vote in the first round.

“As none of the mayoral and regency candidates were able to get 30 percent of the vote in those elections, we will hold runoff elections,” said Ilham.

The second-round elections will be carried out 60 days after the first election results were announced and if none of the losing candidates file an objection at the Constitutional Court.

The runoff election in Southwest Aceh will be contested by the Jufri Hasanuddin-Yusrizal Razali pair who garnered 29.34 percent of the vote and Fakhruddin-T. Burhanuddin Sampe who won 26.87 percent of the vote in the initial round.

In West Aceh, the Teuku Alaidinsyah-Rachmad Fitri H.D. pair gained 29.04 percent of the vote while Ramli M.S. and Moharriadi obtained 22.4 percent. The runoff election in Sabang will be between Hirwan Jack-Saluddin Al Qassani (28.7 percent) and Zulkifli H. Adam-Nazaruddin (26.2 percent). In Langsa city, the second-round election will pit Zulkifli Zainon-Syaifulah (27.92 percent) against Usman Abdullah-Marzuki Hamid (21.48 percent).

Although in general, the elections ran quite well, the Aceh Panwaslu recorded a number of matters that must be improved in the future.

“We found a considerable number of people not registered in the electoral register,” said Aceh Panwaslu head Nyak Arief Fadhilah.