Jakarta, we have a problem

As of 11pm today, a week after election day, the General Elections Commission (KPU) has counted eleven million votes from 57,792 polling stations. While this may sound like a splendid effort, these figures are worrying. The problem is that there are 171,265,442 Indonesians who have the right to vote and on election day there were a total of 519,920 polling stations, each with one ballot box (Kompas, 11/4/09 page 2). Each polling station caters for a maximum of 500 voters, as laid down in Article 150 of Indonesia's Law No.10/2008. If the turnout was 100%, then 10% of ballot boxes counted would mean 10% of the maximum possible votes counted. However, while 11.1% of ballot boxes have been opened, the votes counted only amount to 6.5% of the electorate. Assuming this ratio remains consistent, this means the turnout will only be 58.4%. This means something has gone wrong somewhere. Are Indonesians really that disillusioned, or did the KPU make such a mess of the election that millions of Indonesians were deprived of their right to vote? Either way, expect complaints from the (bad) losers.

Meanwhile the count goes on, but the rate the votes are being counted at is actually slowing (as shown in the graph). Tracking the results coming in today at the official General Election Website, at the current rate, they'll need another 10 weeks to finish the job.

So it looks like the KPU are pretty incompetent. Even the president has starting blaming them. However, the 64 million Rupiah question is: was the "incompetence" systematic (favoring one particular party, such as the president's Democratic Party for instance...) or was it just bog-standard incompetence. Indonesia's voters need to know...