Banda Aceh – A former Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebel won the first direct election for governor of Aceh province, the electoral commission announced on Friday, a step in a peace deal that ended decades of conflict in Aceh.
Irwandi Yusuf won 38 percent of the total vote, while his closest rival Ahmad Humam Hamid had 16.6 percent, Aceh Independent Election Commission chief Muhammad Zafar told a news conference. The result was widely expected after private polls on voting day showed Yusuf had won.
Yusuf, who contested the election as an independent, is due to assume office in early February, according to the electoral commission's timetable. "I left it to the people. The people made their choice without coercion and money," Yusuf told Reuters.
A veterinarian by training with a Masters degree from Oregon State University, Yusuf was arrested in Jakarta in 2003 and sentenced to nine years in prison for his work as an underground campaigner for the separatist GAM.
Fluent in English, he was appointed GAM's representative to an ASEAN-EU mission tasked with monitoring the peace pact signed on Aug. 15, 2005, in Helsinki under Finnish mediation.
Around 2 million people voted in the Dec. 11 election, 16 months after the government and GAM signed a truce to end almost three decades of fighting that killed 15,000 people. The eight candidates included two retired Indonesian army generals.
Former Aceh military commander Djali Yusuf finished at the bottom with 3 percent of the vote. The military has been accused of gross human rights abuses during anti-rebel campaigns in Aceh.
The peace deal was triggered by the Dec. 26, 2004 tsunami that left 170,000 dead or missing and 500,000 homeless in the province of 4 million.
Analysts have said the new leadership would need to deliver on reducing widespread unemployment and on housing for about 50,000 people still homeless two years after the tsunami.
Aceh is rich in resources ranging from natural gas to coffee, as well as yet-to-be-tapped potential in such areas as tourism, but the long-running conflict hindered the economy, and the tsunami dealt it another massive blow.
Indonesian leaders have played down suggestions a victory by a GAM candidate could threaten the country's integrity.
Some analysts also fear legislators from national parties that dominate the provincial assembly may try to make it hard for Yusuf to govern. But Golkar, the largest party in the national parliament, said that would not be the case.
"We congratulate Irwandi on his victory. The election has been held peacefully and democratically and we all have to honour the results," Ferry Mursyidan Baldan, the deputy chairman of the Golkar faction in parliament, told Reuters.
He said his party was looking forward to cooperating with a Yusuf administration.