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Coalition reports foulplay in vote tally

A coalition of civil society groups on Tuesday filed a report with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) regarding alleged vote buying at the Regional General Elections Commission (KPUD) level during the tabulation of the July 9 presidential election results

Haeril Halim (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Wed, July 16, 2014 Published on Jul. 16, 2014 Published on 2014-07-16T09:27:24+07:00

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Coalition reports foulplay in vote tally

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coalition of civil society groups on Tuesday filed a report with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) regarding alleged vote buying at the Regional General Elections Commission (KPUD) level during the tabulation of the July 9 presidential election results.

'€œThe KPK welcomed our findings on the irregularities,'€ coalition spokesman, Haris Azhar of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), told reporters at the KPK headquarters on Tuesday.

Haris said that the coalition had found that the alleged tampering had favored the Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa ticket, which is supported by the Gerindra Party-led coalition, but he declined to reveal any further details.

According to quick counts by credible institutions last Wednesday, Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo-Jusuf Kalla won the presidential election with around 52 percent of the vote.

However, on the same day, Prabowo also declared he had won the election and cited a number of survey institutions whose quick-count results have been deemed '€œquestionable'€ by the Indonesian Association for Public Opinion Surveys (Persepi).

With regard to the allegations of tampering at the KPUD level, Haris said that the brother of one of the presidential candidates had met with West Papua Governor Abraham Octavianus Atuturi to allegedly discuss about the scheme.

'€œOne interesting finding of ours is that there was a meeting between a regional head in West Papua and a brother of one of the presidential candidates. The meeting took place in a private jet,'€ Haris added.

He further said that one of the presidential candidates had given regional heads substantial amounts of money to press the KPUDs to manipulate the election results.

According to the coalition, the efforts to manipulate the results also allegedly took place in Bangkalan regency, Madura Island.

'€œWe also found many irregularities abroad such as in Johor, Malaysia. He hope that the KPK will follow up our findings, especially on vote buying because we have talked to the General Elections Commission [KPU] and the Elections Supervisory Agency [Bawaslu] but they gave no response,'€

He added that members of the Indonesian Military (TNI) allegedly took part in the efforts to influence the election results.

'€œThere was some sort of intimidation in a number of places [on election day]. All the irregularities took place due to a lack of supervision by the KPUDs and the Bawaslu,'€
Haris went on.

Responding to the coalition'€™s questions, KPK spokesman Johan Budi said that the antigraft body would first study the reports.

'€œWe asked the coalition to elaborate on their findings,'€ Johan said at the KPK headquarters on Tuesday.

Earlier, the national campaign team of Jokowi-Kalla reported a number of irregularities that they alleged had benefited Prabowo'€™s camp.

One of the most blatant acts of tampering, it said, occurred in two regencies, Sampang and Bangkalan, in Madura island, East Java, just three days after the election.

The team found that the Jokowi-Kalla ticket had secured zero votes in a number places in the two regions, which the team said was highly unlikely.

'€œIt does not make sense. At every polling station there is at least one witnesses from our team, not to mention several National Awakening Party [PKB] members and volunteers from the Ansor [Nahdlatul Ulama'€™s youth wing] group. It is impossible that the Jokowi-Kalla ticket did not get a single vote,'€ Ferry Mursyidan Baldan from the Jokowi-Kalla team said on Saturday in Jakarta.

The PKB is part of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P)-led coalition, which is backing the Jokowi-Kalla ticket.

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