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'KPU Mainly to Blame' for Voter List Fraud Cases: Experts
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Paul Barber
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Apr 23, 2009 03:01 PDT
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Received from Joyo Indonesia News
The Jakarta Post
April 23, 2009
`KPU Mainly to Blame' for Voter List Fraud Cases
The General Elections Commission (KPU), the government and the
House of Representatives are all to blame for widespread voter
list fraud, experts say.
If not resolved properly, they warned, the problem could
undermine the legitimacy of the April 9 legislative election
results.
"The current legislators should also bear the responsibility for
the voter list fraud because they failed to monitor the
registration process," former KPU member Edwin H. Soekowati said
Wednesday.
"The KPU with the government's help should carry out the
registration process, while political parties should be involved
in the monitoring process."
Activist Hariman Siregar said political parties were too busy
campaigning and seeking out coalitions to strengthen their
positions.
"They have forgotten about the voter list fraud and are too busy
chasing seats at the House," he said.
He added the government should consider postponing the July 8
presidential election to prevent the same problems from
recurring.
"The cost of postponing the presidential election can be
expensive, but to keep going with the election without proper
clarification can cost the people even more," he warned.
However, Diponegoro University legal expert Hasyim Asy'ari said
only KPU members should be held accountable for the fraud, while
the accountability mechanism could not be applied to the
President or the home minister.
"The bureaucracy does not have a mechanism to seek
accountability regarding the elections," he said.
Various groups have come up with different figures for the
number of eligible voters left off the voter lists.
National Commission on Human Rights chairman Ifdhal Kasim
claimed 30 percent of the country's 171 million eligible voters
were not unregistered.
Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P)
secretary-general Pramono Anung Wibowo claimed 45 million voters
were left disenfranchised.
Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) chairman Prabowo
Subianto said a more substantial 50 to 70 million voters were
not registered.
Also Wednesday, the PDI-P's presidential campaign team claimed
it had found a CD containing the KPU main server's real-time
data.
"The data shows the KPU actually listed more votes than the ones
shown to the public from their tabulation center," said team
member Sudiatmiko Ariwibowo.
He refused to reveal the source of the CD.
The KPU's tabulation center listed only 13 million votes counted
in total upon the center's closing down on April 20. However,
the data received by the team shows the main server had listed
around 49 million votes by that date.
The votes represent the current interim results of the
legislative elections, in which the Democratic Party leads.
However, the data does not show any major changes in party
ranking.
The data's latest entry on April 21 at 6:07 p.m. shows the
Democratic Party still led the vote count by almost 13 million
votes, or around 16 percent of the total votes, followed by the
Golkar Party with 11.5 million votes and the PDI-P in third with
8.7 million votes.
"The data shows the KPU has lied to the public, and if the
commission has any problems with these findings, then we
challenge them to invite an independent auditor to perform an
audit on their server," said PDI-P executive Hasto Kristiyanto.
This is the second piece of evidence that the team has managed
to gather on possible manipulation during the recent elections.
According to another team member, Arief Wibowo, the first piece
of evidence was a list of text messages about vote manipulation
between "prominent figures".
The team said it would next bring the issue to the Elections
Supervisory Committee and demand the President be held
accountable for the voter list fraud.
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