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Indonesians watch movement of ballots to guard against vote tampering

JAKARTA — As Indonesia anxiously awaits the official results of Wednesday’s presidential election, of which Mr Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and Mr Prabowo Subianto have each claimed to have won, thousands of volunteers and ordinary Indonesians are watching the ballots’ each and every move to guard against vote tampering.

Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto waving Palestine flags during a rally in Jakarta on Friday. Mr Prabowo claimed victory shortly after polling closed 
on Wednesday. 
Photo: AP

Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto waving Palestine flags during a rally in Jakarta on Friday. Mr Prabowo claimed victory shortly after polling closed
on Wednesday.
Photo: AP

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JAKARTA — As Indonesia anxiously awaits the official results of Wednesday’s presidential election, of which Mr Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and Mr Prabowo Subianto have each claimed to have won, thousands of volunteers and ordinary Indonesians are watching the ballots’ each and every move to guard against vote tampering.

However, this could still happen in a vote-counting process that involves many stages over two weeks, analysts warned. Already, the first hint of foul play has emerged, with a sub-district polling committee member in North Sumatra allegedly found tampering with a ballot box, The Jakarta Post reported yesterday.

The report quoted the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) as saying the alleged incident took place on Wednesday evening in Medan after the ballot had closed. The member had allegedly opened the ballot box and seized an important document from within, The Jakarta Post quoted Ms Syafrida Rasahan, the province’s Bawaslu head, as saying.

When summoned for questioning, the member failed to show up. Ms Syafrida added that her agency was working closely with the Elections Commission (KPU) to investigate the possible violation.

KPU is tallying votes from the July 9 ballot, with official results due in less than two weeks. If either candidate refutes the outcome due to evidence of fraud or other voting irregularities, the case will go to the Constitutional Court. The judges have two weeks to make a ruling after receiving the complaints.

About 140 million votes need to be added up, and the results are hauled, sometimes on horseback and on foot, from polling stations on 900 inhabited islands to regional centres. While counting at local booths is done publicly, the adding up of results is done in secret.

Getting the results to Jakarta involves several steps: A sheet with the polling station tally is sent to the nearest village to be amalgamated with other results, then sent along several further stops — including the district level — where they are added again before reaching the capital, said Mr Paul Rowland, a Jakarta-based political analyst and former Indonesia country director for advocacy group, the National Democratic Institute.

Mr Rowland said if someone were to try to change the numbers, it would take place at the middle stages of the process, where there are hundreds of lower-level officials overseeing the tallies, including commissioners for each province and district. “The central commission is fine, as the election monitoring body and the board of trustees are present,” said University of Indonesia political science professor Maswadi Rauf. “The weak spot is at the district level” as a large number of officials means that “supervision is difficult”.

Jakarta Governor Widodo and former army general Prabowo each claimed victory shortly after polling closed on Wednesday, citing different unofficial quick vote counts conducted by private agencies that had accurately forecast previous election results. Most quick counts showed Mr Widodo edging out Mr Prabowo, but the latter refused to concede defeat, citing three quick counts done by lesser-known polling firms.

Mr Widodo had warned on Thursday of possible tampering of the votes cast. Both camps have sent thousands of volunteers to monitor the vote-counting at the various stages. The volunteers as well as ordinary citizens also took photos of the official tally at polling stations and posted them on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

Ms Clare Siagian, 27, was among the many Indonesians who tweeted a photo of the C1 form, a piece of paper summarising the final vote tally at a polling station. Her photo showed the result from a South Jakarta polling station, where Mr Widodo had won 305 votes ahead of Mr Prabowo’s 113.

Most quick counts give Mr Widodo a buffer of about eight million votes, based on Bloomberg calculations. That is going to be difficult for Mr Prabowo to overcome, said political analyst Kevin O’Rourke. “It’s a big enough margin to be safe. Prabowo’s best chance is the Constitutional Court, but he’s got to have some kind of claim or evidence,” he said. AGENCIES

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