Polling station officers eager to see more voters

Wed, 07/08/2009 11:07 AM | Headlines

With a bundle of election documents in his left hand, Supangat Arifin, 58, was busy directing six men erecting a makeshift tent in a parking lot in front of the Kalibata Memorial Park in South Jakarta on Tuesday morning.

Starting the work on 9 a.m., Supangat, who chairs a polling station working committee (KPPS) in community unit (RW) 08, Duren Tiga subdistrict, said he wanted to complete preparing the polling station (TPS) early and perform another "important" duty.

"I wanted to finish this job before noon so that I can remind people to cast their votes tomorrow *today*," said the retired banker.

In the April legislative elections, Supangat had to handle 350 registered voters but in today's presidential elections the grandfather of four is now responsible for 650 voters.

"In the last *legislative* elections, only 200 out of 350 voters participated. My biggest concern now is how to get all the people on the voters list to come to the polling station tomorrow *today*," he said.

R. Santosa, 64, a KPPS chairman in Rawajati, South Jakarta, shared similar concerns.

Considering the fact that half the residents living in his neighborhood were migrant workers from outside Jakarta, Santosa said only 60 percent of 300 eligible voters in his working area had exercised their voting rights during the previous legislative elections.

"Many people told me they skipped the election because they were not familiar with any of the hundreds of legislative candidates."

Since the presidential election has only three candidates competing, Santosa, who currently handles 645 registered voters, is expecting to see more people showing up.

In the 2009 legislative elections, the Jakarta Regional Elections Commission recorded 7,026,772 registered voters but less than 60 percent of them actually cast their ballots.

On Monday, the Jakarta branch of the Elections Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu) warned that 18 among 257 subdistricts in the city were prone to conflict since the number of eligible voters in these areas had suspiciously increased by more than 25 percent as compared to those in the legislative elections.

Rawajati and Duren Tiga are among the districts in question.

Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Wahyono also cautioned at the possibility of clashes in the capital over disputes related to the validity of the electoral list remaining unresolved.

"We decided that we would deploy 1,265 officers to guard the polling booths," Central Jakarta Police Precinct officer Adj. Comr. Joko Waluyo said. - JP/hwa/dis