Madura Island gears up for vote reruns

ID Nugroho , The Jakarta Post , Bangkalan, Madura | Tue, 12/09/2008 7:39 AM | Headlines

The political climate in Bangkalan and Sampang is set to boil over as the two regencies on Madura Island gear up for vote reruns next month.

The planned reruns have become a hot topic among natives in coffee kiosks, traditional markets and workplaces. The campaign teams of governor hopeful Soekarwo and his rival Khofifah Indar Parawansa are intensifying last-minute efforts to win voters.

The campaign teams from the United Development Party (PPP) and the Patriotic Party, which nominate Khofifah and her running mate Mudjiono, have chosen Islamic boarding schools and the Nadhlatul Ulama-affiliated Fattayat women’s organization as the foci for their campaign efforts.

The Democratic Party and the National Mandate Party (PAN), which support Soekarwo and his running mate Saifullah Yusuf, are concentrating their attention on winning over local elite groups.

Soekarwo, a former secretary of the provincial government, has won political support from the bureaucracy and local officials, many of whom have had their positions threatened by the issuance of Government Regulation No. 41 stipulating a reorganization of regional administrations.

Salimah Cholil, an executive of the Fattayat women’s organization in Bangkalan, said the Khofifah-Mudjiono pair had replaced their campaign team and witnesses with new faces. The pair has also picked her son, Imam Buchori Cholil, to lobby clerics and Islamic boarding schools in the two regencies.

She said four of the 12 Islamic boarding schools in Bangkalan supported Khofifah and the majority of eligible voters outside the boarding schools had voted for her in the run-off.

“But the vote counting in many polling stations was rigged to help Karsa win,” she said, referring to the pair of Sukarwo and Saifullah.

The Constitutional Court recently ordered a vote rerun in the two regencies and a vote recount in Pamekasan after finding massive and systematic violations had benefited Soekarwo and Saifullah during the run-off.

The provincial elections commission (KPUD) has planned to stage the recount between Dec. 13 and 16 and the vote reruns on Jan. 21, 2009.

Both camps said they were aware that the rerun would be decisive.

Based on the KPUD’s initial count, Soekarwo won the election, securing 291,781 votes to Khofifah’s 151,666 in Bangkalan. In Sampang, Soekarwo secured 240,552 votes compared to Khofifah’s 181,698 votes.

A local figure has called on the poll supervision committee, witnesses, monitoring agencies and the police to pay more attention during the recount in Bangkalan, which he said would be prone to rigging.

“Tanah Merah and Blega are the two districts where the most incidences of vote rigging occurred in the run-off. In Tanah Merah, witnesses for Khofifah were intimidated, and in Karang Gayam village, Blega, chairman of the local polling station, Supriyadi, said he was asked to punch 200 ballot papers to secure victory for a certain candidate,” he said.

Abdul Wasik, an executive of the Patriotic Party in Sampang, asked the public to stay vigilant to signs of vote rigging during the rerun. He said violations were rampant in the districts of Srenyak, Sukodono, Omben and Camplong.

“Yet, Bangkalan is apparently more crucial than Sampang,” he said.