Election Participation Down: KPU

Jakarta (Antara) - Public participation in the Indonesian presidential election this year has been recorded lower than in 2009, Election Commissioner Sigit Pamungkas said here on Wednesday. "The participation has been about 70 percent. At the national level, the trend is down, but at the global level, it is not bad," he replied when asked for his comment on the issue. He said the figure was lower than in 2009, with participation recorded at 71.7 percent. Public participation in the legislative elections held on April 9, meanwhile, was recorded at 75.11 percent, he said. Sigit Pamungkas said that, however, in terms of quality the General Elections Commission (KPU) has considered this year's election to have seen improvement. Another KPU commissioner, Ferry Kurnia Rizkiyansyah, meanwhile said he was still calculating the exact number of voters in the election this year. "Calculation is being done based on the total number of legitimate and non-legitimate votes, and the list of fixed voters," he said. The KPU announced on Tuesday evening that the total legitimate votes cast in the election were recorded at 133,574,277, while the illegitimate votes at 1,379,690. KPU had declared that the Joko Widodo-Jusuf Kalla pair had secured 70,997,833 of the total votes or 53.15 percent, while the Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa had received 62.576,444 or 46.85 percent. (*) Reported by Fransiska Ninditya