T

he incumbent governor of West Kalimantan, Cornelis, has hailed his reelection and the victory of Joko Widodo in Jakarta on Thursday as political gifts for former president Megawati Soekarnoputri and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

He said his reelection and Joko’s convincing victory in Jakarta were major boosts for the party and paved the way to victory in the 2014 general elections.

“My victory in West Kalimantan and Joko’s in Jakarta are our presents to Ibu Mega and the PDI-P and she has asked us to maintain our stamina to allow us to work harder over the next five years,” Antara quoted him as saying on Friday.

He said he had received a congratulatory phone call from Megawati and she asked him to work harder for the people and for the party’s future in the province.

Cornelis, paired with his incumbent vice-governor Christiandy, won reelection for another five-year term, overcoming their three pairs of rivals in the election conducted on Thursday.

On the same day, Awang Ischak and his running mate Abdul Muthalib nominated by the PDI-P and several smaller parties garnered 45.5 percent of the total vote to win the mayoral election in Singkawang, according to a quick count conducted by Tribunnews daily.

According to the results of a quick count conducted by the Indonesian Survey Institute in West Kalimantan, the Cornelis and Christiandy pairing grabbed 724,664 or 51 percent of the total vote while the Armyn Ali Anyang-Fathan A. Rasyid pair garnered 17.5 percent, the Morkes Effendy-Burhanuddin A. Rasyid pair won 24 percent and the Tambul Husin-Barnabas Simin team got 6.4 percent.

According to a quick count conducted by the TV-One network in Jakarta, Joko and his running mate Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama nominated by the PDI-P and the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), won 53.68 percent of the total vote to overcome incumbent Governor Fauzi Bowo and his running mate Nachrowi Ramli who garnered only 46.32 percent.

Cornelis said he was satisfied with his victory although his tally was not as high as his target of 64 percent and this was due to unspecified voting problems for hundreds of thousands of voters.

Christiandy for his part hailed his pairing with Cornelis as a good example in terms of party coalitions because it was the first time that the PDI-P and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party (PD) had formed an effective coalition to win a gubernatorial election.

“This is the first ever coalition between the two parties at the provincial level. This can be taken as a good precedent for the two parties in the future,” he said.

Megawati twice refused to join a ruling coalition with Yudhoyono when the latter won the presidential elections in 2004 and 2009.

Cornelis vowed to fulfill his political promise to accelerate the development of infrastructure in all regencies, mainly those bordering East Malaysia, in an effort to improve the province’s economic growth and the people’s social welfare.

“We still have a lot of work we have to finish over the next five years,” he said.

Meanwhile, the provincial general election commission (KPUD) called on all sides to exercise self-restraint and to maintain political stability in the province until the election’s final result was officially announced to the public.

“The winners will be officially announced by the KPUD after the vote counting is completed in Sept. 29, and the vote counting at the sub-district and district level is still under way,” provincial poll body chief A. Muzammil said.

He added that the winners could be announced ahead of schedule only if the vote counting at the regency and municipal levels was completed before Sept. 25.

He said the provincial poll body did not conduct a quick count and would not rely on such results because the law required the manual counting of votes.