Indonesia voted yesterday in only its third general election since the fall of the Suharto regime in 1998, with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party tipped to win most seats.
The elections will decide who can run for president in July, when Yudhoyono will seek a second five-year term on the back of his sound economic management and progress in the fight against corruption.
Five people were killed in attacks overnight by suspected pro-independence rebels in eastern Papua Province, but elsewhere in the vast archipelago the vote passed peacefully.
An unofficial tally by the independent Indonesian Survey Institute put the Democrats in front with 18.59 percent of the vote, based on a partial count from 2,100 ballot stations mainly in eastern Indonesia.
Analysts said the tally would change as more votes were counted but so far they were in line with pre-election opinion polls that put the centrist Democrats ahead of former president Megawati Sukarnoputri’s Democratic Party of Struggle and Suharto’s former ruling party, Golkar.
Official results may not be known for days.
Suharto’s resignation amid protests and financial ruin heralded the start of the “Reformasi” era of political change, and yesterday’s vote was seen as a key test for Indonesia’s young democracy.
It will decide who can run for president in the July election, as parties or coalitions must hold 20 percent of seats in the 560-seat lower house or 25 percent of the popular vote to nominate a candidate.
The country’s 171 million eligible voters were asked to choose between thousands of candidates on local, provincial and national levels, across 520,000 polling stations and around 6,000 islands.
Tensions were high in Papua after some 100 suspected separatist guerrillas armed with arrows and bombs attacked a police post.
One of the attackers was shot by police and 11 were arrested.
Elsewhere in Papua, three non-indigenous motorcycle taxi drivers were knifed to death, a girl was killed when a fuel depot was set alight, and police skirmished with suspected rebels along the border with Papua New Guinea.
Voting was peaceful in Aceh Province, where a 30-year separatist conflict ended only four years ago. Several members of the former rebels’ new political party were murdered in the lead-up to the election.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
STORM’S PATH: Kong-Rey could be the first typhoon to make landfall in Taiwan in November since Gilda in 1967. Taitung-Green Island ferry services have been halted Tropical Storm Kong-rey is forecast to strengthen into a typhoon early today and could make landfall in Taitung County between late Thursday and early Friday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, Kong-Rey was 1,030km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), the nation’s southernmost point, and was moving west at 7kph. The tropical storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 101kph, with gusts of up to 126 kph, CWA data showed. After landing in Taitung, the eye of the storm is forecast to move into the Taiwan Strait through central Taiwan on Friday morning, the agency said. With the storm moving
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
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