Prabowo receives reports of election irregularities

Vice presidential hopeful Prabowo Subianto claims he has received many reports of irregularities in Wednesday’s presidential election.
"As many as 5,000 ballots where voters marked the Megawati Soekarnoputri and Prabowo box have been declared broken by local officials. It happened in Tanjung Priuk," Prabowo told a press conference Wednesday.

He blamed several state institutions for failing to guard the election neutrally, but refused to name which ones.

He said a joint team from the Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle (PDI-P) and the Great Indonesian Movement (Gerindra) Party had been deployed to collect more evidence on the alleged irregularities.

"Then we will talk about legal action to resolve the problems," he added.(The Jakarta Post)

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SBY voice in Sulawesi S. reduced

Presidential hopeful Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s (SBY) campaign team has claimed it has lost around 10 percent of votes in South Sulawesi after a controversial statement was made by Andi Alifian Malarangeng.
Diza Rasyid Ali, head of the provincial SBY camp said Wednesday the team had expected to secure as much as 40 percent of votes in the province, but quick counts show the frontrunners received closer to 30 percent.

“Pak Alifian's [Andi Mallarangeng] statement has been misused by certain people and decreased the number of votes SBY should get,” Diza told the Jakarta Post.

Data from the Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) shows that SBY received 27.27 percent of the vote, down from the 40 percent previous surveys expected them to get. Jusuf Kalla and Wiranto got 66.93 percent, while Megawati Soekarnoputri and Prabowo Subianto received only 5.79 percent.

Andi Mallarangeng, a member of the SBY campaign team, said the province’s residents were not ready to lead the country; a statement many feel underestimates the capability of local residents.

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West Java KPU website hacked

A hacker has added messages of support for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on the Website of the West Java General Elections Commission, tempointeraktif.com reported Wednesday morning.

The website, http://kpu.jabarprov.go.id/, is running normally, but the running text at the top of the Website contains a campaign message for incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

The message reads: "Say No To Mega-Lebih Cepat Lebih Baik, JK Gak Usah Bikin Lambat-Lanjutkan" (Say No To Mega-the faster the better-JK, don't make it slow-Continue).

"Lebih Cepat Lebih Baik" (faster, better) is the campaign slogan for presidential candidate Jusuf Kalla, and "Lanjutkan" (continue) is Yudhoyono's campaign tagline.

The site administrator apparently did not notice the hacker's work. When The Jakarta Post accessed the site on Wednesday morning, it still contained the running text with campaign phrases at the end of it.(The Jakarta Post)

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SBY on Track for Re-Election

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was poised to win his second term in office on the back of recent economic and political stability, according to early returns Wednesday in the country's presidential election.
An unofficial quick count at 2,000 polling stations - with almost 100 percent of ballots tallied - gave Yudhoyono 60 percent of the vote, which would be enough to avoid a runoff in September. He needs 50 percent of cast ballots to win in one round.

Megawati Sukarnoputri, a former president whose father was the first postcolonial leader of Indonesia, was second at 27 percent, with Vice President Jusuf Kalla at 13 percent.

The preliminary result was based on ballots from all 33 provinces and was conducted by the Indonesian Survey Circle, which has accurately forecast previous elections. It was broadcast on TVOne television.

"The vote count is clearly not finished, although quick counts show the success of our struggle," Yudhoyono said in televised comments from his private residence.

But his opponents raised questions about the accuracy of the preliminary result and said they would wait for their own counts before responding.

Kalla said he was "shocked" by the quick counts but said his own election monitors "are confident that the result is not like that."

Secretary-General Pramono Anung of Megawati's leading opposition party, said it was too early to comment because "what is used to determine the winner is not exit polls or quick counts, but official accounting."

An official result is to be released by the National Election Commission by July 27.

Earlier, lines of voters formed at roughly 450,000 polling booths across Indonesia's three time zones, from Aceh in the west to remote Papua province in the far east. Voting passed calmly, with no reports of major incidents when polls closed at 0600GMT (2:00 a.m. EDT).

In Papua - where a minor insurgency seeking independence from Jakarta has been waged for decades - 40-year-old elementary school teacher Fransiscus Bokeyau said he had voted for Yudhoyono. "People feel free of fear and peaceful under his leadership. Slowly the standard of living and the economy in Papua are improving," he said.

It was Indonesia's second direct presidential election. Before dictator Suharto was ousted in 1998, Indonesia was under brutal authoritarian rule for three decades, and until recently was wracked by secessionist battles and suicide bombings by al-Qaida-funded Islamic militants. It suffered towering unemployment after the Asian financial crisis in 1997-98.

Today, the predominantly Muslim country of 235 million is enjoying a level of harmony its critics had said was impossible, with its economy growing at 4 percent a year amid a severe global downturn.

"We are optimistic our candidate will win in a single round based on recent poll results," Andi Mallarangeng, Yudhoyono's campaign spokesman, said on the eve of the election. People "want the continuation of stability in politics, security and economy."

In Aceh, where Yudhoyono sealed a peace deal in the aftermath of the December 2004 Asian tsunami that killed 130,000 Indonesians, he also has a strong following. "SBY has made Aceh safe," said Absah Mustafa, 72.

He resettled hundreds of thousands of people after the disaster "badly destroyed our homeland. He has proven that he is a good leader," Mustafa said.

Yudhoyono's reputation also was boosted by a crackdown on the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist network blamed for a series of attacks between 2002 and 2005 that killed more than 240 people, most of them foreign tourists on Bali.

Still, Indonesia faces huge obstacles in fighting severe corruption, attracting foreign investment to improve its crumbling infrastructure, creating an independent judiciary, and reducing poverty of up to 100 million people. It has also struggled to stop illegal logging and mining that are depleting its natural resources and causing global warming.

Most public opinion polls in Indonesia are funded by political parties, but even the surveys paid for by Yudhoyono's opponents before the election put the 59-year-old former general 10 percent ahead of the closest rival.

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Presidential Election of Indonesia

Governors across the country declared Tuesday their preparedness for Wednesday’s presidential election, and pledged to uphold the Constitutional Court’s ruling to allow unregistered voters to cast ballots using their ID cards.


The governors made the pledge during a video conference with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who is one of the three contenders in the race.

The President told the 33 governors to stay "neutral and professional" in holding the election, and help the General Elections Commission (KPU) implement the new Constitutional Court ruling.

"The KPU has abundant work to do, especially on the Constitutional Court's ruling yesterday,” Yudhoyono said at the Presidential Palace. “They have now more jobs to do, so you must help them ensure that voting day tomorrow runs well."

Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo said the local branch of the KPU, the KPUD, had prepared reserve ballots amounting to 10 percent of the number of registered voters in the city.

"We have distributed the reserve ballots to areas where we expect to see more unlisted voters," he said.

East Java Governor Soekarwo said the local KPUD was ready to implement the Constitutional Court ruling, while Bali Governor Made Mangku Pastika said the verdict had solved the problem facing unregistered voters.

The video conference lasted about an hour. A total of 11 governors reported on their latest preparations in their respective provinces ahead of tomorrow's polls, while others listened.

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