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Surabaya, Kompas – Under strict guard from the security, Tuesday (11/11), second round official counting of East Java Regional Election resulted in Soekarwo-Saifullah Yusuf pair as the winner.

The pair took a narrow lead with 60,223 votes from Khofifah Indar Parawansa-Mudjiono (Kaji) pair.

Soekarwo thanked citizens of East Java on the belief. He promised to realize his gratitude and gratefulness through the next five years of dedication. ”Don t look at the past. Let s step forward together for a better future of East Java,” he commented.

He also asked his supporters to hold themselves and not celebrate this victory overactedly. ”don t insult other parties. Even though (they) support different candidates, all citizens of East Java have to work together to build East Java,” he said on Tuesday.

In the counting done in Mercure Hotel Surabaya, on Tuesday, East Java Election Commission counted 15.399.665 legal votes. Of the number, 7.729.944 votes went to Soekarwo-Saifullah (Karsa) and only 7.669.721 votes were reached by Kaji, meanwhile 506.343 votes were considered illegal.

”If there is no objection, the Election Commission will hold a plenary session to determine the winner on November 15, 2008. If there is an objection, we will wait for the legal process,” said the Head of East Java Election Commission Wahyudi Purnomo.

In yesterday counting, Kaji success team made several interuptions. The first one was made even before Wahyudi began the open plenary session for counting. ”We demand that this plenary session to be postponed until Kaji protest is officially answered by the Election Commission,” said the Secretary of Kaji Success Team M Mirdasy.

Kaji issued a protest on last November 8. In the protest, Kaji among others demanded to repeat the voting in four regencies in Madura, to stop the counting in several regencies/municipalities, and to repeat the counting in several regencies/municipalities. ”we have evidences of deceits that cause some loss to Kaji,” he said.

File a case to Constitutional Court
Wahyudi said that official answer had to be discussed in a plenary session and East Java Election Commission had not scheduled that yet. ”The objections will be recorded in transcript of proceeding,” he said.

Feeling that their objections were neglected, Kaji team refused to sign the transcript of proceeding in provincial level. Kaji were sure to file a case to Constitutional Court.

A member of Election Watchers Committee for East Java Election, Abdullah Bufteim, said that most transcripts of proceeding did not insert any objections. According to the law, objections would be ignored or could not be protested if they were not put in the transcript of proceeding.

He revealed that Watchers Committee indeed received many reports on violation. Those reports had been followed up to the Election Commission and the Police who were authorized to execute the sanction to the perpetrators. ”The Committee do not have a right to execute,” he said.

In a press conference attended by, among others, Vice Governor candidate Mudjiono, Head of Regional Board of Democratic Party of Struggle Sirmadji, Head of Regional Board of Patriot Party La Nyalla Mattalitti, and General Chairman of PKNU Choirul Anam, Khofifah emphasized the claim on the election result to the Constitutional Court.

”Our team members have headed for Jakarta this morning (Monday, 10/11) to the Constitutional Court Building. The team also brought evidences which will be used as ground of our claim to the Constitutional Court,” said Khofifah.

Based on Kaji team report, the deceit were also in form of vote counting that was not done according to the right procedure. That happened in the level of Subdistrict Election Committee which did not count votes in each voting center, but in every village.

”We also have an evidence in form of a picture showing the opening of the ballot on the way from a voting center to the Subdistrict Election Committee,” said Khofifah as she asked for voting repeat in Sumenep, Pamekasan, and Sampang Regencies, Madura, where many malpractices occurred according to Kaji team.

Head of Democrat Party Anas Urbaningrum yesterday expected all parties to respect the official recapitulation result of East Java Election. Because whoever the winner was, it was the choice and a winning symbol of East Java citizen. ”We believe that East Java citizens are smart enough, mature enough and do not like having conflicts,” he said. (RAZ/APO/DEE/NWO)

Source: http://cetak.kompas.com/read/xml/2008/11/12/00314963/soekarwo-saifullah.menang

Photo: Dok. Humas MK/Wiwik BW

Translated by Yogi Djatnika / MK

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