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Expect Poll Results Next Week: KPU
Camelia Pasandaran | August 28, 2009

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The General Elections Commission said on Thursday it would announce the final results of the legislative elections next week — almost five months after the elections were held.

Abdul Hafiz Anshary, chairman of the commission, also known as the KPU, said on Thursday that the Constitutional Court was expected to issue a final ruling on election disputes in some districts on Tuesday, clearing the way for the announcement.

Perhaps.

“If the court issues the ruling on September 1 — in line with what the Constitutional Court told us — we will declare the legislative seat allocations on September 2,” Hafiz said.

Though the process of counting the ballots was completed not long after the April 9 legislative elections, the commission has been confused about how to apply the Elections Law, particularly in light of different rulings from the Constitutional and Supreme Courts on how to calculate the number of seats allocated to each party based on a complex three-stage vote-counting process.

The commission has repeatedly announced — and then delayed — announcing the final allocation of seats in the House of Representatives and Regional Legislative Councils (DPRDs).

Still at stake are 66 seats in the House and 1,300 in the DPRDs.

Hafiz, who is under increasing pressure to resign following the KPU’s multiple failures in the run-up to the legislative and presidential elections, repeated on Thursday that there had been confusion among the seven commissioners about just how to allocate seats — confusion that is continuing.

“We are worried about the method of allocating seats because we cannot agree on how to do it,” Hafiz said on Thursday. “It’s not just us. People outside the KPU also have different opinions about the correct method.”

He said the KPU had asked the Constitutional Court, the highest legal authority in the land, to issue a written statement regarding its recent ruling because it wasn’t clear enough and could be open to multiple interpretations.

The Court sent its official reply to the request on Wednesday.

“The court replied to our letter stating that the seat allocation method applied on August 21 is correct,” Hafiz said. “So that means [apart from districts where vote counting is continuing after revotes] there will be no more changes regarding seat allocation.”

“Our members are all now of one opinion,” he said.

However, Hafiz admitted that the KPU had sent another letter to the court seeking further clarification regarding the ruling.

“We expect to get a reply to our letter today [Thursday],” he said.

“We could have made the decision ourselves, but we were worried that it may create more controversy,” Hafiz added.

He said that in preparation for the inauguration of legislative members, scheduled for Oct. 1, the commission would conduct an orientation program on Sept. 28.

The legislative members will also be required to attend the traditional Pancasila Sanctity Day commemoration on the same day as the inauguration.