KPUD praises Balinese on peaceful election

Dicky Christanto , The Jakarta Post , Denpasar | Fri, 07/11/2008 10:12 AM | Bali

Balinese showed political maturity in their conduct during Wednesday's gubernatorial election, an official here said.

Chairman of the provincial General Elections Commission (KPUD) Anak Agung Gede Oka Wisnumurti, said Thursday he was "very proud of my Balinese counterparts for their support and mature behavior", resulting in a peaceful election.

Starting a day after Wednesday's election, a team of 70 KPUD officers deployed to all areas, down to subdistrict level, to monitor the counting of votes, Wisnumurti said.

"The team's job is to report on the conduct of the counting at every level," he said. The end result usually varies little from estimates based on early results, Wisnumurti added.

As of Thursday noon, he said, the team has received 1,964,280 ballots from the nine regencies, representing about 74.6 percent of 2,631,754 eligible votes.

The pair backed by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), I Made Mangku Pastika and AA Puspayoga, had secured first position by collecting over 1 million votes, or about 55.6 percent of votes cast.

The second position as of Thursday noon was taken by Cokorda Budi Suryawan and Nyoman Gede Suweta. They secured 503,889 votes or around 25.8 percent. In third place was I Gede Winasa and Gusti Bagus Alit Putera, with 360,601 votes or around 18.5 percent.

More than 16,000 ballots were considered invalid.

Wisnumurti said verification of results will be conducted by regency level election committees on July 13 and 14, after receiving results from lower levels.

The provincial commission will then announce official results on July 15 or 16, he said.

The Election Supervisory Committee reported a number of suspected violations of constitutional rights. Hundreds of people, such as those living near the Kerobokan prison in Denpasar, could not vote as they had not received ballot cards required by voters at polling stations.

An official said these reports would be investigated.