T

he Central Java General Elections Commission (KPUD) confirmed on Tuesday the No. 3 ticket of Ganjar Pranowo and Heru Sudjatmoko as the winners of the gubernatorial election.

The announcement was made during the vote recap of the gubernatorial election in Semarang.

In line with quick count, Ganjar and Heru led with 6,962,417 ballots or 48.82 percent in the final count, followed by the No. 2 ticket of Bibit Waluyo and Sudijono Sastroatmojo with 4,314,813 votes (30.26 percent) and the No.1 ticket Hadi Prabowo and Don Murdono with 2,982,715 ballots (20.92 percent).

Central Java KPUD head Fajar Subhi said none of the pairs had raised objections to the vote counts in 35 regencies and municipalities across the province. However, only witnesses from Ganjar's camp attended the KPUD plenary meeting, while those from the two other camps did not express any reason for their absence.

'Despite the absence of the other candidates, the vote recap is still valid because it was open to the public. We have invited the campaign teams of each ticket,' said Fajar.

Fajar added that the KPUD would submit the vote recap to the Central Java Legislative Council next week.

In August, the new governor and deputy governor will be sworn in.

Ganjar dominated the vote in nearly all the regencies and municipalities except Batang, Cilacap,
Demak and Kendal regencies.

In the next three days, the KPUD will allow the other candidates to file any protests over the vote recap.

Central Java KPUD member Nuswantoro Dwinarno said a higher number of voters cast their votes this year compared to 2008.

As many as 15,261,268 of the total of 27,385,985 (55.7 percent) eligible voters cast their votes, an increase of 0.7 percent compared to 2008.

Nuswantoro said that based on observations by the KPUD, voters who did not exercise their voting rights were either ill, deceased, had moved to other areas, were attending school or were working.

Governor-elect Ganjar said after the announcement of the vote result that he would immediately meet his supporters across the province.

He added he had prepared a resignation letter as a House of Representatives member and was immediately targeting bureaucratic reform, something he had planned while running for governor.