Democratic Party, PDI-P Reconciliation ‘Only a Game’

INDONESIA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS 2009 - Deputy chairman of the Democratic Party Achmad Mubarok said Wednesday his party’s recent involvement with arch-rival’s the Indonesia Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) was only a political game.
“Our decision to move closer to the PDI-P is only a game to remind our political partners to stop pressuring President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono,” he told a discussion at the Regional Representatives Council.

Yudhoyono’s coalition bloc consists of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), the National Mandate Party (PAN), the National Awakening Party (PKB), the United Development Party (PPP) and dozens of small parties.
Despite Yudhoyono’s allegiance to those parties, the Democratic Party plans to endorse PDI-P chief patron Taufik Kiemas as the next speaker of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR).
“Politics is a dynamic game, and we don’t know where it will head to and who will score the winner,” Mubarok said.
A political analyst from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Ikrar Nusa Bakti, said Mubarok might refer to PKS.
“The PKS is the party that still has reservations with the ties between the Democratic Party and PDI-P,” he said. (jpost)

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KPU Hopes to Announce Final House Seat Allocation Next Week

INDONESIA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS 2009 - A member of the General Elections Commission (KPU) said Wednesday that the commission hoped it would be able to announce the final seat allocation for the House of Representatives next week.
"In fact, we established the final allocation on Aug. 21. We met and confirmed the seat allocation with the General Elections Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) on Aug. 24," Andi Nurpati said before a meeting with the House electoral roll inquiry special committee in Jakarta on Wednesday.

"We decided to delay the announcement because we are still awaiting the Constitutional Court's final ruling on the election results in some regions, such as in South Nias and the Riau Islands," she added.
Andi said she hoped the Constitutional Court would be able to issue their final ruling next week.
"So that we can announce the final allocation simultaneously with the Constitutional Court's final ruling," she said.
Bawaslu member Bambang Eka Tjahya agreed with Andi Nurpati that the KPU should announce the final seat allocations at the same time as the Constitutional Court's ruling.
"The important thing is that the final announcement is made before Oct. 1," he said. The new legislators are scheduled to be inaugurated on that date. (jpost)

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SBY Officially Declared Winner

INDONESIA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS 2009 - The General Elections Commission (KPU) finished counting votes from the recent presidential election Thursday, two days ahead of schedule, officially giving incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) a second term, with 60.80 percent of the valid votes.

The Megawati Soekarnoputri and Prabowo Subianto team received 26.79 percent of the votes with the Jusuf Kalla and Wiranto team receiving 12.41 percent.
Kalla, who is also the current vice president, made it official Thursday that he will challenge the results of the count, though it remains unclear whether he will join forces with Megawati and Prabowo to do so.
“[The Kalla–Wiranto team] will continue to challenge the legitimacy of the electoral roll to with the Constitutional Court. This is not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing, but a matter of democractic education,” Kalla said to Antara on Thursday.
The Kalla–Wiranto campaign team has been toying with the idea of challenging the results of the election, saying that the candidates were waiting for the General Elections Commission’s official tally, even though most pollsters have named SBY the likely winner.(jp)

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Upcoming House Speaker member of Democratic Party

INDONESIA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS 2009 - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party has secured the post of upcoming House of Representatives' speaker, according to a legislator involved in the lobby for the post.

"There is an agreement in a lobby between House factions and the government that the legislative elections winner will hold the House speaker post," deputy chairman of an ad hoc committee deliberating the bill on the House Composition Mufid Busyairi said as quoted by Tempointeraktif.com on Wednesday evening.
He said the lobbying activity was held in Shantika Hotel for five hours, attended by, among others, Home Minister Mardiyanto and State Secretary Hatta Rajasa.
The Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle (PDIP) and Golkar Party initially objected to the agreement and demanded a vote on such a crucial post, but they finally understood, he said.
He added that PDIP would also benefit from the agreement as it won some regions in the legislative elections.(jp)

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Megawati-Prabowo Team Calls for More Witnesses in Vote Counting

INDONESIA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS 2009 - The Megawati Soekarnoputri-Prabowo Subianto presidential campaign team has called on the General Elections Comission (KPU) to allow team to send more than two witnesses to the vote counting process currently underway.

"We’ll send the KPU a letter about this important issue," team secretary Fadli Zon said Wednesday at a press conference.
He added witnesses from his team had been prohibited from entering the KPU building earlier in the day because the KPU would only allow two witnesses from each candidate’s team to monitor the vote counting.
Arteria Dahlan, the legal counsel for the Megawati-Prabowo team, said the witnesses were intimated by the KPU’s ban.
"It would be hard for our two witnesses to file an objection if there was a case in a certain area where they do not come from,” Arteria said.(jp)

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PDIP Absent from Gerindra Meeting

INDONESIA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS 2009 - The Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle's (PDIP) presidential candidate Megawati Soekarnoputri and other party leaders were absent Tuesday from the national leadership meeting of the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), their partner in the July 8 presidential election.

Kompas.com reported that other supporting political parties sent representatives to Gerinda's meeting, including the Indonesian National Party Marhaenism, the Indonesian Unity Party, and the Labor Party.
Gerindra's chief patron Prabowo said Megawati could not attend the meeting because she was still in Bangkok.
"We will meet with each other after this meeting" Prawobo said.
Prabowo attended the PDIP's most recent national working meeting and even addressed the audience.(jp)

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SBY Takes Early Lead in Official Vote Recapitulation

INDONESIA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS 2009 - Incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his running mate former Bank Indonesia governor Boediono have taken the lead on Wednesday as the General Elections Commission (KPU) started its official vote tabulation of the July 8 presidential election.

Yudhoyono had secured 2,325,635 votes as of 12:45 pm Jakarta time.
Megawati Sukarnoputri of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and her running mate Prabowo Subianto of the Greater Indonesian Movement Party (Gerindra) trailed with 1,548,379 votes.
Golkar Party's Jusuf Kalla and his running mate Wiranto of the People's Conscience Party (Hanura) came in last with 383,638 votes.
All of the votes counted came from the provinces of Riau and Bali.(jp)

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JK-Win Camp Slams SBY for Disclosing Intelligence Data to Public

INDONESIA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS 2009 - The Jusuf Kalla-Wiranto (JK-Win) success team said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) should not have made intelligence data public because it could disturb national peace.
JK-Win success team spokesman R Jogi Soehandodyo said here on Saturday disclosure of the intelligence data would only disturb national peace because it linked Friday`s bombings in the Mega Kuningan area with the recent presidential election.

"The intelligence data made public by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Friday should have been kept as reference for further investigation. But why did the president disclose it to the public," Soehandoyo asked.
According to him, President Yudhoyono should not have made the public disclosure because by doing so he had reduced his own credibility.
Soehandodyo said there were many possibilities behind Friday`s bombings at the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels, for instance, it could have been perpetrated by a certain party that deliberately made use of the election situation to disturb the national economy.
"Or it could even be the work of corrupters who want to use the chaotic situation to escape from the law , or of an international terrorist ring cooperating with their colleagues at home because they do not want to see harmonious relations between Indonesia and the United States," he said.
President Yudhoyono at a press conference on Friday said he had been a target of a terrorist group since the legislative elections in April this year.
He said intelligence agents had obtained proof he was targeted in the form of pictures showing members of a terrorist group practicing their marksmanship on his photo.
The president said the intelligence service had also collected information that there would be violence to reject the result of the 2009 presidential election.
"There was a plan to occupy the General Elections Commission (KPU) during the announcement of the results of the ballot counting. There was also a statement saying there would be `revolution` if SBY won, `we will turn Indonesia into another Iran, and lastly there was a statement saying that SBY should not be reinaugurated (as president)," he said.(ant)

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Presidential Rivals Caution SBY Not to Politicize Terror Attacks

INDONESIA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS 2009 - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s two opponents in last week’s presidential election on Friday appealed for politics not be linked in any way to the Jakarta bombings earlier in the day.
They were reacting to Yudhoyono’s long televised address from the State Palace in which he claimed the bombings were part of a terrorist action connected to the results of the presidential election, which unofficial quick-counts showed as an overwhelming victory to Yudhoyono.

“According to information from the State Intelligence Agency (BIN), a plan existed to cause violence and break the law in response to the presidential election result,” he told a national audience.
Presidential candidate and Vice President Jusuf Kalla said later that he condemned the bombings but said they had nothing to do with the elections, as suggested by Yudhoyono.
“So, you’re suggesting that Megawati [Sukarnoputri] and I did it? No, obviously not,” he said.
Kalla said previous bombings in Indonesia suggested that Friday’s explosions at two Jakarta hotels were long-planned acts of terror.
“Yet the election results were only known last week,” he said.
Kalla suggested terrorists may have been able to carry out the attacks because the National Police and BIN were engaged in providing security for the presidential elections.
“Maybe the police and BIN focused too much on the elections and gave less attention to the possibility of terrorist threats and so were unable to prevent the attacks from happening,” he said.
Separately, Megawati Sukarnoputri, offering her condolences to the victims of the tragedy, told a news conference the bombings were a crime against humanity that must be punished severely.
She then urged that no one, especially Yudhoyono and his government, engage in political maneuvering on the bombings.
Referring to a statement by Yudhoyono in his televised address that political enemies were behind the bombings and that he also was one of their intended targets, Megawati said: “Please, do not exploit this tragedy for political reasons.”
“If [Yudhoyono] has said that someone wants to kill him and the threat is true, then why doesn’t he arrest these people?” she said.
Meanwhile, Megawati’s running mate, Prabowo Subianto, also called on the public not to politicize the incident or link it with the presidential election.
There should be no divisions caused by “this barbaric incident,” he said.
“We should calm down, and try to raise the people’s spirits.”
Prabowo said he was ready to support the government, whoever led it, despite his criticism of Yudhoyono’s policies during the campaign.
“There’s nothing wrong in criticizing the government. But it has never crossed our mind to resort to [bombing]. We use political strategies,” Prabowo said.
People’s Conscience Party (Hanura) executive leader Fachrul Razi called on people not to link the bombings with his team’s action in alleging fraud had been committed during the election.
“We’re ready to accept our loss, but election manipulation should still be revealed,” he said.
Syamsuddin Haris, a political analyst from the Indonesian Science of Institute (LIPI), said the bombing reflected negligence on behalf of BIN and the police in preventing terrorist threats.
Syamsuddin said BIN had only focused on the elections and that this had weakened its monitoring of antiterrorism.
However, he said he doubted the bombing, as speculated by Yudhoyono, occurred because of the competition between candidates during the presidential election.
“It has nothing to do with the election. I think the bombing occurred purely because of the negligence of the police, which the terrorists took advantage of,” he said.(jg)

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KPU to Announce Presidential Election Result on July 27

INDONESIA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS 2009 - The General Elections Commission (KPU) said Monday that it kept its plan unchanged despite the Jakarta hotel bombing and would start national recapitulation of votes on July 22 and would announce the result of presidential elections on July 27.
KPU member Sri Nuryanti said votes recapitulations in regency and provincial levels proceeded as planned, and in some places, like in Central Kalimantan, the processes had even been completed.

"The schedule for national recapitulation will remain the same, July 22-24," Yanti told Tempointeraktif.com.
Quick counts and also latest data from KPU show that President Susilo Bambang Yudhono secured a landslide reelection win by about 60 percent of votes.
Yanti noted that KPU had asked the National Police to give additional security protection to KPU building during the national recapitulation process, which will be open for observers and media people, and on the day when KPU would announce the results, i.e. July 27.
"We are sure that the recapitulation process will be secure," she said.
President Yudhoyono said moment after bombs rocked JW Marriot and Ritz-Carlton hotel on Friday that his political opponents had planned to mobilize people to occupy the KPU building on the day when it would announce the presidential election.
The bombing killed nine people and injured more than 50.(jp)

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