T

he Makassar General Election Commission (KPUD) in South Sulawesi on Wednesday officially declared Mohammad Ramdhan '€œDanny'€ Pomanto and his running mate Syamsu Rizal as the new mayor and vice mayor of the city for the 2014-2019 period, after winning nearly a third of the vote in last week'€™s election.

They will be sworn in on May 8, 2014, replacing the current mayor, Ilham Arief Sirajuddin.

According to the KPUD'€™s official count, the Danny-Syamsu pair, nominated by the Democratic Party (PD) and the Crescent Moon Party (PBB), had garnered 182,484 (31.18 percent) of the total 585,291 valid votes cast on Wednesday. Irman Yasin Limpo and Busrah Abdullah, nominated by the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the United Development Party (PPP), came in second with 114,032 votes (19.48 percent), while Tamsil LInrung and Das'€™ad Latif, nominated by the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), obtained 93,868 votes (16.04 percent).

Supomo Guntur and Kadir Halid, nominated by the Golkar Party and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), finished fourth with 84,153 votes (14.38 percent).

The official election result differed only marginally from the quick count released by the Celebes Research Center, which on election day last Wednesday announced Randhan-Syamsu had won with 31.31 percent of the votes.

Ten candidate pairs contested the Makassar mayoral election on Sept. 18, six of them nominated by political parties and four others running on independent tickets.

The KPUD also announced 7,008 of the total votes cast were invalid. As many as 592,299 eligible voters cast ballots in the election, a turnout of 60.19 percent.

The KPUD plenary meeting held to announce the results was marked with a walkout by election witnesses from the Supomo-Kadir pair to protest what they said was a fraud-ridden election.

'€œWe don'€™t accept the result of the election held on Sept. 18 because of rampant fraud '€” for example, civil servants being forced to vote for a particular candidate,'€ said Wahab, a witness from the Supomo-Kadir campaign team.

He added his team would file a lawsuit with the Constitutional Court against the vote result of the Makassar mayoral election.

'€œWe will go to Jakarta today to register our lawsuit with the court,'€ he said.

Protest was also raised by witnesses from the Irman-Busrah pair.

'€œWe are still discussing the possibility of filing a lawsuit with the Constitutional Court,'€ Irman-Busrah campaign spokesperson Henny Handayani said.

In response to the impending lawsuit from the Supomo-Kadir pair, KPUD head Nurmal Idrus said it was the right of the candidates and regulated by law. The lawsuit could be filed three days after the announcement of the election result at the latest.

'€œIf they want to file a lawsuit, we say please do. It'€™s the best and most civil path candidates who don'€™t accept the election result can take,'€ said Nurmal.

The KPUD, added Nurmal, was ready to face any lawsuit filed by candidates.