Washington – The United States called for changes in Indonesia's political system on Friday, as the Asian country's ruling party swept to an overwhelming victory in parliamentary elections.

"The United States believes that parliamentary elections are tightly controlled by the government of Indonesia," State Department spokesman John Dinger said.

"The electoral system severely limits political competition; Indonesian citizens do not have the ability to change their government through democratic means."

Dinger noted that one independent election monitoring group said that while Friday's election proceeded smoothly, some problems were reported, including multiple voting, intimidation of party witnesses, discrimination in treatment of voters and various procedural irregularities.

The monitoring group also found that the entire election process lacked transparency, Dinger said.

"We do hope the government of Indonesia takes steps to investigate those allegations and takes corrective action if needed," he said. "More broadly, we also believe Indonesia should move toward a political system in which the will of the people can be heard." Indonesia's ruling Golkar party, in power for most of President Suharto's 30-year rule, was assured of winning even before the start of a campaign that saw the worst political violence in the world's fourth most populous country in three decades.

Golkar had taken a record 74 percent of the 105 million votes counted out of a potential 125 million by Friday evening, up from 68 percent in the last poll in 1992.