Polls in three areas of Australia with the largest number of voters face uncertainty amid worries that the state-allocated budget for organizing the upcoming Indonesian elections may be insufficient.

Overseas election committees (PPLN) in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney have all hinted that the allocated money will not cover the organization of the three rounds of elections.

PPLN Melbourne says they are expecting Rp 4 billion (US$353,000) for this year'€™s elections, a huge difference from the Rp 28 billion they proposed. According to PPLN Melbourne chairman Isvet A. Novera, the approved budget is less than the A$800,000 ($729,360) given for the previous election in 2009.

'€œI don'€™t know how we will survive until the [second round] presidential election,'€ Isvet said recently.

PPLN Melbourne, covering Victoria and Tasmania, will handle around 16,000 registered voters for the legislative election in April.

The same doubts also linger in PPLN Sydney, which covers New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia. PPLN Sydney chairman Jon Soemarjono said that the General Elections Commission (KPU) has allocated Rp 5 billion for elections in the area of 22,000 voters. Even though the amount is almost twice the 2009 budget, it is still less than what they expected.

PPLN Perth is also encountering the same issue. Even though there is not much discrepancy between the approved and proposed figures, the local election committee doubts that the money will be enough to hold polls until the second round of the presidential election.

PPLN Perth secretary Nusiaga Putri said the committee is expected to receive Rp 1.3 billion, less than the Rp 2 billion proposed, to organize polls with an estimated 6,000 voters.

'€œOur expectation is that the number will continue to grow and we don'€™t know if we have enough for that,'€ she said, adding that the less-than-expected budget allocation resulted in a reduction in the number of voting booths.

The drastic cut occurred in the Melbourne area, where the local committee had to halve the number of booths to 16.

The late disbursement has also worsened the problem. PPLN Melbourne, Perth and Sydney said they received the money last week, only two weeks prior to the April election and, based on procedures, the amount was only a third of what had been agreed.

'€œIt is not easy for us to arrange everything in less than a month. Here, we need to book everything at least a month before,'€ Isvet said.

'€œThey [the KPU] think it is the same here as Indonesia,'€ he added.

PPLN Sydney secretary Akbar Makarti believes that the problem stemmed from the absence of standardization in the KPU'€™s budget allocation.

'€œThey should have collected data from previous elections and made a referral system for budget disbursement,'€ he said.

Questions also remain over why the KPU decided to tighten the expenses for overseas posts even though the state budget allocation for the 2014 election has almost doubled. Kompas.com reported that the House of Representatives approved the allocation of Rp 16 trillion from the state budget for this year'€™s election, almost twice the allocation in the 2009 election.

PPLN Sydney and Melbourne will hold polling on April 5, while PPLN Perth on April 6. Overseas election committees are permitted to hold the election between March 30 and April 6, ahead of the scheduled national election on April 9. However, the vote counting will be done simultaneously on April 9.

All these complaints, however, fell on deaf ears as KPU commissioner Arief Budiman said on Monday that the lack of funds was relative.

'€œIn that case, it is relative as many [KPU branches] said that they lack [funds],'€ he said.

That said, Arief admitted that the disbursement of funds to KPU Australia branches was late.

'€œThey wanted to inform the public [about the election]. But it turned out that the funds were only disbursed around Feb. 4. That'€™s why they have had difficulties,'€ he said. '€œThat said, it didn'€™t disturb the preparations.'€

Arief also said that the fund-disbursement tardiness should not hamper the construction of polling stations.

'€œWhy build the polling stations in February [when the election is in April]?'€ he said.

Hans Nicholas Jong contributed to this report

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