After foreign governments and observers
congratulated Indonesia on staging an orderly and peaceful election, focus is
now shifting to safeguarding the votes cast by the electorate in Wednesday’s
presidential election.
The
National Police said on Thursday they would guard the vote-counting process
until the General Elections Commission (KPU) announced the official result on
July 22.
“Police
personnel in the field will keep a close eye on the vote counting and
recapitulations conducted at every ballot station. Some officers have even
taken notes or photos of the official vote-counting process in the polling
stations that they are guarding,” National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Ronny
Sompie said on Thursday.
Ronny
said photos taken by the officers would be used as evidence in the event of a
result dispute.
“The
photos and notes from the field [...] will only be used in case any problems
arise in the vote counting to justify the situation,” he said.
Meanwhile,
the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) warned KPU commissioners not to
engage in corrupt practices to tamper election results.
KPK
deputy chairman Busyro Muqoddas warned KPU commmissioners against accepting
bribes.
“I call
on everybody involved not to resort to bribery, as this would not lead to a
clean government; it could in fact delegitimize the future government,” Busyro
told reporters.
He also
called on the public to closely monitor the vote counting.
With
both pairs of candidates declaring themselves winners of the presidential
election, many suspect that one of the pairs may resort to rigging the votes to
alter the result of the manual vote count conducted by the KPK.
Several
Jakarta-based pollsters have declared Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle
(PDI-P) presidential pair Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and Jusuf Kalla as the winner in
Wednesday’s election, with a margin of more than 5 per cent.
With
tensions running high, outgoing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has called
on both tickets to exercise restraint in the days ahead so as to prevent a
conflict between their respective supporters.
Despite
the tension, the US government congratulated the people of Indonesia for the
success of the presidential election.
Bagus
BT Saragih and Hans Nicholas Jong
Business & Investment Opportunities
Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd (SBC) is incorporated
in Singapore since 1994.
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