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Jokowi inches ahead in KPU tally

Despite the incessant victory claims from the Gerindra Party’s presidential hopeful, Prabowo Subianto, the official tally from the General Elections Commission (KPU) so far indicates otherwise

Nicholas Jong (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Fri, July 18, 2014

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Jokowi inches ahead in KPU tally

D

espite the incessant victory claims from the Gerindra Party'€™s presidential hopeful, Prabowo Subianto, the official tally from the General Elections Commission (KPU) so far indicates otherwise.

As regencies and municipalities concluded their vote recapitulations on Thursday, KPU data indicated that the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle'€™s (PDI-P) presidential candidate, Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo, and running mate Jusuf Kalla were leading with 51.3 percent of the vote.

Prabowo and his running mate, Hatta Rajasa, were trailing behind with 48.7 percent.

The latest figures have taken into account a large amount of data from the so-called pivotal provinces, such as West Java and East Java, where a substantial number of voters are concentrated. The data covers 16 out of 26 regencies in West Java as well as 19 out of 38 regencies in East Java.

Within the 10 largest electoral pockets, Prabowo was leading in Lampung, Riau, Banten, West Java, West Sumatra and South Sumatra, while Jokowi was in front in Jakarta, Central Java, East Java and South Sulawesi.

The 10 provinces account for 72.2 percent of the country'€™s total 190 million eligible voters.

Charta Politica researcher Yunarto Wijaya said on Thursday that it was unlikely that Prabowo would be able to catch up, based on the initial KPU data.

Yunarto warned that it was still possible for Prabowo to win if there was a massive incidence of vote-rigging to overturn the result, particularly during the recapitulation at the provincial level through July 19. The KPU will announce the final official tally no later than July 22.

'€œBut if we use our logic and the available data, it is almost certain that Jokowi will become our next president,'€ he said.

'€œJuly 22 is only for the KPU to officiate the result. The public can get involved by doing its own vote tally,'€ he said.

With data entered from 99.26 percent of the archipelago'€™s 479,183 polling stations as of Thursday, kawalpemilu.org concluded on Thursday that Jokowi had secured over 66.9 million votes or 52.83 percent of the vote, with rival Prabowo gaining 47.17.

Kawalpemilu.org has been conducting a real count by collecting vote tallies from every polling station with the help of hundreds of volunteers.

KPU commissioner Sigit Pamungkas said the website was an example of how the public could help ensure that the vote-tally process was free from vote-rigging.

'€œSome can guard the election by processing the raw data put forward by the KPU and turning it into a national vote-count result, or they can be present during the multilevel vote-tally process,'€ he said.

For overseas recapitulations, which began on Thursday, the KPU data showed that Prabowo was leading with 193,887 votes, while Jokowi secured 155,024 votes.

The Overseas Election Committee (PPLN) confirmed there had been a higher turnout among overseas voters this year compared to the last presidential election in 2009.

PPLN head Wahid Supriyadi said on Thursday that the number of Indonesians living abroad who cast their votes reached 674,967, compared to 367,480 in 2009.

However, the voting in Malaysia and Hong Kong has been marred by allegations of vote-rigging, with Jokowi'€™s camp accusing the PPLN in Kuala Lumpur of attempting to manipulate the votes in favor of Prabowo, as most of the voters used drop boxes and the postal service.

KPU commissioner Arief Budiman said that all the allegations of overseas vote-rigging, including in Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong, had been resolved and, thus, there was no need for revotes.

While there will be no revotes for overseas voters, the KPU has organized repeat ballots in 44 polling stations across Indonesia.

The revotes were held based on recommendations from regency-level Elections Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu) offices following indications of electoral violations.

'€œSome regencies have staged revotes in two polling stations,'€ Arief said, citing Siodarjo, Mojokerto and Cirebon as a few of the places where repeat ballots were conducted.

Meanwhile, Prabowo repeated his call for Jokowi to concede defeat depending on the upcoming KPU announcement. '€œI have repeatedly said that I am willing to accept defeat. But the other camp should also voice the same statement in order to ease tension,'€ Prabowo said after a closed-door meeting with representatives from several Muslim organizations.

'€œI will not be deploying my supporters to KPU headquarters for the result announcement on July 22. The other camp should also pledge the same thing. Why does it have to be me all the time?'€ Prabowo said.

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