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Megawati cries foul in Indonesian election battle
Mon, Jul 06, 2009
AFP

JAKARTA - Indonesia's main opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri has called for a new set of voter lists to be drawn up, only three days ahead of presidential elections, officials said Monday.

In an 11th-hour meeting late Sunday with another presidential aspirant, Golkar party chief Jusuf Kalla, the pair complained that millions of voters remained unregistered and cast aspersions about the polls' credibility.

"We hope Wednesday's presidential election will be conducted fairly, justly, peacefully, and democratically," Megawati campaign spokesman Peompida Hidayatullah was quoted as saying by the state-run Antara news agency.

Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) leader Megawati, an ex-president and daughter of independence hero Sukarno, is trailing incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in opinion polls ahead of the election.

Kalla, the outgoing vice president, is polling third in only the second direct presidential election in Indonesia since the fall of the Suharto dictatorship in 1998.

The two candidates were expected to hold a press conference on Monday to press their complaints about the voter lists.

Megawati made similar complaints about April's general elections but those polls were declared legal and gave a whopping victory to Yudhoyono's Democratic Party, making it the strongest in parliament.

Electoral officials have said they have no intention of delaying Wednesday's vote and have reportedly dismissed the complaints as "not real."

Democratic Party secretary general Ali Marzuki also rejected the opposition's concerns, saying voters had had three months to register.

"Political parties in this case should be more active in encouraging people to register at the nearest electoral office," he told AFP.

He said Megawati and Kalla were "just not ready to face a defeat as we all know that all opinion surveys show that SBY's position is unshakeable," he said, using Yudhoyono's nickname.

Some 170 million Indonesians scattered across thousands of islands are eligible to vote in the election.

A run-off will be held in September if no candidate wins a clear majority.

 
 
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