"In fact, people from outside Jakarta do not need to visit the province to observe the election day. The voters should visit their respective polling stations to witness the results of the vote counting process," Kalla stated.
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Vice President Jusuf Kalla has urged people from outside Jakarta to not take part in the Al-Maidah tour to observe the Jakarta gubernatorial election on April 19, 2017.

"In fact, people from outside Jakarta do not need to visit the province to observe the election day. The voters should visit their respective polling stations to witness the results of the vote counting process," he stated during a press conference at his office here on Tuesday.

The vice president expressed hope that people from outside Jakarta would comply with the edict on the prohibition of mass mobilization titled the Al-Maidah tour, issued by the Metro Jaya Police, Jakarta Election Commission, and the Jakarta Election Supervisory Body.

On the contrary, Kalla has expressed optimism that Jakartas residents living around the polling stations would likely witness the counting process.

"If you are a voter at a polling station, you could visit the station to witness the counting process together," he noted.

Furthermore, Kalla explained that if a polling station has 300 voters who have cast their respective votes, then hundred people are sufficient to witness the vote counting process.

He said the mobilization of non-residents of Jakarta during the election could create problems, as 10 percent of Jakartas residents is a significant figure to witness the vote counting process.

"If 10 percent of Jakartas population, or half of the total number of voters visit the polling stations, witness the counting process, the figure could reach five million, or three to four million people. It is an incredible figure," he pointed out.

He also expressed hope that people from outside Jakarta would respect and trust its residents to ensure that the election process would run in a safe, orderly, and peaceful manner.

"If people from outside Jakarta visit the province, it would imply that they do not trust Jakartas residents," he noted.

During the second round of the election, the number of permanent voters has reached 7,218,254, spread across 13,034 polling stations in Jakarta Province.

The second round of the election will be held after no candidate was able to receive more than 50 percent of the votes in the first round.

The two pairs who qualified to compete in the second round are Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok)-Djarot Saiful Hidayat, who won 42.99 percent of the votes, and Anies Baswedan-Sandiaga (Sandi) Uno, with 39.95 percent of the votes. The pair of Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono and Sylviana Murni failed to qualify for the second round, as they got 17.07 percent of the votes.

Few days before the election day, several agencies have released the results of their survey polls. Some pollsters have hinted at the Anies-Sandi pair excelling over Ahok-Djarot.

Indonesian Survey Circle, led by Denny JA, stated that the Anies-Sandi pair had received 51.4 percent of the respondent votes, while the Ahok-Djarot pair got 42.7 percent of the votes. Some 5.9 percent of the respondents remained undecided.

According to the Indicators Survey Institute, the Anies-Sandi pair received 48.2 percent of the votes, and the Ahok-Djarot pair got 47.4 percent of the votes.

The results of the survey conducted by Saiful Mujani Research & Consulting indicated that the Anies-Sandi pair got 47.9 percent of the votes, while Ahok-Djarot received 46.9 percent.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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