Seventy procents voters in Indonesia satisfy with the election

INDONESIA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS 2009 - A survey firm with previously acknowledged links to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s reelection campaign team, released a poll on Thursday showing that the majority of voters were satisfied with the legislative and presidential elections and that most respondents believed the polls were conducted fairly and honestly.

“More than 70 percent of the voters are satisfied with the legislative and presidential elections,” Dodi Ambardi, executive director of the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI), said during a news conference on Thursday.
He said the number of those unsatisfied with the elections was “small,” at less than 25 percent of the total of about 6,000 people who were questioned after voting in either the legislative or presidential elections.
Dody said that the LSI exit poll also showed that most voters believed the elections had been even-handed.
“The number of voters that think the elections were fair and honest is even higher at more than 80 percent,” Dodi said.
He added that the data released by LSI was not really new. The exit poll was conducted during the legislative election on April 9 and presidential election on July 8.
Countering claims from Megawati Sukarnoputri’s Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) that the elections were not conducted fairly — specifically, that the General Elections Commission (KPU) was biased and the final voters list was flawed — Dodi said that the perceptions only involved the political elite and not the general public.
Former President Megawati and running mate Prabowo Subianto, who have been outspoken in their criticisms of the performance of the General Elections Commission’s handling of the election, were Yudhoyono’s closest rivals.
LSI has acknowledged that it received funding from Fox Indonesia, which consulted on Yudhoyono’s campaign, on some of its surveys. The firm also has conducted a survey on the issue of Java and non-Java based presidential candidates. However, LSI said it paid for the recent exit poll and quick count out of its own funds.
Ade Armando, a communication expert from the Faculty of Social and Political Science of the University of Indonesia, said the survey only measured voters’ perceptions, not the even-handedness of the elections.
“We cannot say for sure that the election had been conducted fairly and honestly,” he said at the news conference.
“It is only voters’ perceptions that are gained from exit polls. The result may be different if it was conducted now. The number of those who don’t think it had been fair and honest may increase,” Armando said.
“As to whether the election had been conducted fairly and honestly, we need official institutions such as the Election Supervisory Board to come up with the real data,” he said.
The Election Supervisory Board (Bawaslu), which has been criticized as a largely toothless organization, has received a number of complaints but has had little if any success in facilitating successful prosecutions of election violations