Amir Tejo, Surabaya – Low turnout marked Sunday's re-vote for the mayor of Surabaya, with many citizens protesting the Constitutional Court for ordering another vote.
Re-votes were ordered in five subdistricts and two villages following complaints by losing candidate and current Deputy Mayor Arif Afandi of several violations of election policies, including candidates campaigning outside the designated period, the involvement of state officials in the incumbent's campaign, the failure by the East Java General Elections Commission (KPUD) to send invitations to registered voters, vote buying and dubious ballot counts.
The KPUD previously named Tri Rismaharini the winner of the June 2 poll. Her running mate is the current mayor, Bambang Dwi Hartono, who is prohibited by term limits from seeking a third stint in office.
The official count from the June poll gave Rismaharini, backed by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), 38 percent of the vote. Arif, backed by the Democrats and the Golkar Party, got 35 percent. None of the three other candidates won more than 15 percent.
Officials manning most of the polling stations for Sunday's re-voting said turnout was less than half of that of the initial election.
Dwi Novianto, a polling official in Wonokusumo village, Semampir subdistrict, said only 172 of 571 registered voters there showed up, down from 320 on June 2.
She said this was likely in protest at the need to vote again in an election that they felt did not affect them. "A lot of people here complain that no matter how they vote, there's no improvement to their lives or their communities," Dwi said.
The results of the re-votes are expected later this week.
Meanwhile, at a polling station in Rungkut subdistrict, officials wore robes to protest the Constitutional Court's ruling.
"It's a sort of insult against the authorities, who we see as incompetent for failing to execute this election properly on June 2," local polling official Muhammad Yusuf said.
Despite the low turnout, the re-votes in the subdistricts of Bulak, Krembangan, Rungkut, Sukolilo and Semampir, and the villages of Putat Jaya in Sawahan and Wiyung in Wiyung subdistrict proceeded largely without incident.
However, on Saturday night, Rismaharini's campaign team claimed to have seen several people handing out leaflets of a rival candidate with Rp 100,000 ($11) notes hidden inside them.
Though they declined to say which candidate the leaflets promoted, the team accused the candidate of vote-buying.
However, the local poll monitoring body said it was premature to level such accusations.
"We need to look into the incident and get the parties involved to clarify," said Wahyu Hariyadi of the Surabaya Elections Supervisory Board (Bawaslu). "We're not going to jump to conclusions until we hear the explanations."