Election Commision Checks Validity of Vote Count for 26 Provinces

Jakarta (Antara) - The National General Election Commission (KPU) has concluded the validity check on vote count and recapitulation of the legislative election results from 26 provinces until Friday morning. The 26 provinces are Bangka Belitung, Jambi, West Kalimantan, Gorontalo, Bali, Central Kalimantan, West Sumatra, Central Sulawesi, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), Aceh, Banten, South Kalimantan, South Sulawesi, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Lampung, West Papua, Riau Islands, Central Java, Papua, Riau, East Java, Maluku, North Sumatra, East Kalimantan, and Southeast Sulawesi. The Commission has yet to check the validity of vote count and recapitulation from the remaining seven provinces: West Java, East Nusa Tenggara, South Sumatra, West Sulawesi, North Sulawesi, and Bengkulu. According to Chairman of KPU Husni Kamil Manik, the Commission has set itself a target to finish checking the validity of vote count and recapitulation for all the 33 provinces of the country by Friday, 7:30 p.m. As per Law Number 8/2012 on General Elections of Members of the House of Representatives (DPR), the Regional Representative Council (DPD) and Regional Legislative Council (DPRD), the results of the elections should be known nationally within 30 days after the election day at the latest. As the legislative elections were held throughout the country on April 9, the KPU had previously set May 6 as the deadline for validating the national vote count and recapitulation. However, the deadline was later postponed to May 9. The KPU has started the plenary meeting on vote count and recapitulation since April 26, 2014. Indonesia's parliamentary elections, the largest and most complicated single-day poll in the world, ran peacefully on April 9, with the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) taking an early lead. More than 185.8 million voters spread across thousands of islands, which stretch some 4.8 thousand kilometers from east to west, were registered to vote in over 545 thousand polling stations during the elections in the world's third-largest democracy following India and the United States. This year's parliamentary elections saw the participation of 12 national political parties and three local parties in the Aceh Province. The number of participating parties has fallen from 44 political parties in the 2009 elections. In this year's parliamentary elections, some 6,607 candidates were contesting for 560 seats in the DPR. In addition, there were elections held for the 132 seats of the DPD at the national level; 2,112 seats of the provincial parliamentary (DPRD I); and 16,895 seats for the district/municipality-level legislative assemblies (DPRD II). Unofficial tally, or quick vote count, however, revealed that PDIP is in the first place with 19-20 percent of the nation's votes, followed by Golkar (14-15 percent), Gerindra (11-12 percent), and the ruling Democratic Party (9-10 percent). (*)