Vote Recapitulation Tests Patience

· 5 minutes read

Silence filled a room on the third floor of the Indonesian National Youth Committee (KNPI) on Wednesday (15/5/2019) in Rawamangun, East Jakarta, but not because the room was empty. More than 20 people were inside, half of whom were leaning back in their chairs and playing with their cell phones. The rest were sitting on the floor and leaning back against the wall, appearing to be half asleep.They were the witnesses for the plenary meeting on the vote recapitulation for East Jakarta’s Pulogadung district. Not one of them was in a hurry, even if they were waiting for the meeting’s results as the last piece of the puzzle in the national vote count for the 2019 election. “We’re just waiting for photocopies of the recapitulation form for the provincial legislature,” said the 71-year-old Pulogadung district elections committee (PPK) head, Herry Susanto.

The process could not continue without the district election supervisory committee (Panwascam) and witnesses holding copies of the form. Edi, 45, the witness for a legislative candidate, was sitting on the floor at the back of the room. “Usually it takes one or two hours [to make the] photocopies, so we’ll just be patient,” he said.

Always late

It is usual for Edi to wait long during the vote recapitulation process. Over the last two weeks, he has participated in the vote recapitulation for all subdistricts of Pulogadung district. Typically, the subdistrict-level plenary validation meetings are never on time. They are always one to two hours late.

The Pulogadung PPK could not finish the vote recapitulation for 803 polling stations (TPS) across the district by Wednesday evening, even though the recapitulation for the East Jakarta municipality could only begin after all district-level recapitulations were finished, including Pulogadung.

This domino effect extends to the provincial-level recapitulation for Jakarta. The Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPU) has still not submitted its vote recapitulation to the national KPU.

Under KPU Regulation No. 7/2019, the district-level recapitulation should have finished more than a week ago, on Sunday, May 5, and the Jakarta KPU had been scheduled to declare the final results of the provincial-level recapitulation on Monday (5/13).

The capital’s slow recapitulation process is worsened by the poor technical abilities of field officers.

Herry said that the recapitulation was hindered from the subdistrict level. Oftentimes, subdistrict polling committees (PPS) must call the polling station working committees (KPPS) due to discrepancies in their official vote count and the witnesses’ recorded figures.

As a result, the ballot boxes must be reopened for a recount. “This has occurred for at least four polling stations in each subdistrict of Pulogadung district. It has [delayed] the entire process,” said Herry.

East Jakarta KPU head Wage Wardana said that poor technical comprehension among KPPS officers were among the main obstacles.

“In several places, officers are overwhelmed, exhausted and not equipped with adequate understanding. However, let’s not forget that their dedication has been extraordinary,” said Wage.

Of the six municipalities and regencies in the capital, East Jakarta has the slowest vote recapitulation. The vote recapitulations in the municipalities of South Jakarta and Central Jakarta, along with Thousand Islands regency, had finished a week ago, while the North Jakarta vote recapitulation finished last weekend.

Wage said that several areas in East Jakarta had many TPS. Cakung district, for instance, had 1,461 TPS – believed to be the largest number of TPS in a single district in the country. Meanwhile, Duren Sawit district had 1,123 TPS.

“To be honest, the large number of TPS is a huge challenge,” said Wage.

It is almost impossible for the East Jakarta vote recapitulation to compete in terms of speed with other regions in Indonesia. Bengkulu city, for instance, only had 977 TPS, and had the quickest recapitulation process.

“According to the simulation, we need 35 days just to complete the vote recapitulation for Cakung district. It’s twice the time allotted by the KPU Regulation,” said Jakarta KPU commissioner Partono.

Therefore, many can only continue to wait, even if only several days remain before the deadline of May 22, 2019.

Chaos in Papua

As with Jakarta, the Papua vote recapitulation that began on April 27 is yet to finish. Problems with the integrity of election organizers and changes to voter data are common.

The KPU Papua went so far as to request police assistance to pick up local KPU commissioners in several regions – Mimika, Dogiyai, Puncak, Puncak Jaya, Yalimo, Lanny Jaya, Nduga, Tolikara and Yahukimo – and escort them to the recapitulation in Jayapura.

The monitoring coordinator of the Papua Elections Supervisory Body (Bawaslu), Niko Tunjanan, said that three major issues contributed to the delay in the province’s vote recapitulation: the poor integrity of election organizers, the local noken system that went against standard election procedures, and the difficult geographical conditions that caused two- to three-day delays in the district-level recapitulation. (SPW/FLO)

Editor:

kompascetak