This is why it is hard to follow rules, not work illegally in the forest, and not follow the orders of sleazy politicos: you have to risk your life for $5

I really don’t think that we in North America or most parts of Europe know the true meaning of the word desperation. But since I would hope that leaders in Indonesia, especially newly elected ones, would have some sort of idea, it’s especially confusing to read that the new Vice President would be so clueless as to think that if he invited basically the entire country to his house for a chance to get Rp 50,000, only a few people would show up and they’d all behave calmly.

Wati’s friend was there and said, “Thousands showed up. Even though there were ambulances and hundreds of policemen ready, the number of visitors turned out to be massive.

Kalla paid all hospital costs, and even the funeral. But citizens are furious since this has happened in the past in other places. This should not have taken place; there are other means to give money without making big public announcements. It's so downgrading to the poor.

Jokowi did not do it during his open house (thank G0D)."

Wati adds, “Not a good start for a beginning of the new government-–this  will be used against him by his opponents.  But Sara, you and I know how Kalla really is . . .”

As one commenter on the article below put it: “Saying that cash is going to be handed out is just asking for a huge crowd to gather and jostle etc. Maybe next time just hand out food and good wishes?”

One dead at Kalla’s open house in Makassar

The Jakarta Post, July 29 2014

A female teenager has died, allegedly from asphyxiation, after being trampled Tuesday during an Idul Fitri open-house gathering held by Vice President-elect Jusuf Kalla at his residence on Jalan Hadji Bau in Makassar, South Sulawesi.

Kompas.com reported that Dika, the 15-year-old victim, was a local citizen who attended the event with her mother, Nahu. After falling unconscious, she was taken by an ambulance to the Stellamaris hospital in Makassar for emergency treatment, but doctors were unable to revive her.

Several others were also trampled during the chaotic event, where police officers struggled to maintain order and safety among the thousands of people who had been gathering at Kalla’s residence since the early morning hours. 

Visitors were reportedly very enthusiastic to meet Kalla and his family members, as well as to receive Rp 50,000 (US$4.3) as a donation for attending.

Separately, Sr. Comr. Fery Abraham, head of the Makassar Police Department, expressed his condolences for the victim, saying that overcrowding had led to her death.

“We have deployed around 200 officers from various divisions, including the Brimob [police's Mobile Brigade]. I acknowledge that we were overwhelmed [and struggled] to manage the thousands of people,” he said.

Other Comments:

The poor girl lost her life for 50,000 Rp, trampled by others who just wanted their 50.000 Rp too and did not care

Reality Check: Her life like most Indonesians is worth only Rp50,000 . . . while all the politicians and others in uniforms (with lots of shiny badges and medals) are super rich...

It’s really all one big happy family . . .

Did you ever wonder why, if Prabowo was such a fundamentalist bully and Jokowi was such a snappily-dressed man of the people, the election was so close?

It’s because at the Indonesian presidential “court,” it’s just one big game of loyalty-swapping.  Can ideology-swapping be far behind?

A little tidbit from Wati:

As the first installment of my sins before the next Eid Mubarak, please be informed that I just received a text message from my friend in Jakarta, who attended a state visit at the presidential offices. SBY, Budiono, Mega, bu Umar Wirahadikusumah etc. were all there, including the Crown Princess.

[okay, a primer for those of you who are not up on your Indonesian “royalty:”

SBY is  Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, current President.  He will turn over the presidency to Jokowi in October.

Budiono is the current Vice President.

Mega is of course Diah Permata Megawati Setiawati Sukarnoputri, the 5^th President of Indonesia (serving as Vice President under Abdurrahman Wahid  until his removal in 2001, when she took office until 2004.) She is now chair of the PDIP-the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle.

Bu Umar Wirahadikusumah is the widow of the fourth Indonesian Vice President, who served from 1983 to 1988.)

And Puan Maharani, aka the "Crown Princess" among Jakarta wags, is Megawati’s daughter from her marriage to Taufiq Kiemas.  She holds the second highest positin in PDIP after Megawati, her mother. She is seen as “very arrogant and ambitious,” but rather dull-witted.

Got it?]

My friend was very concerned and scared to watch the behavior of the Crown Princess and acting Lady of the House.

The Crown Princess is so SNOBBISH! And she keeps proving her reputation over and over.

She as well as her cold hearted mom ignored guests unless they approached them first. While any host and/ or hostess is supposed to greet and thanks visitor, especially on Lebaran.

Then the CP and mom were  "attacked" (their term) by the conglomerates who wanted to have their photos taken with them . . .

Oh dear . . .poor Jokowi . . . hopefully he is NOT part of it . . .

Lets pray Jokowi will not put her in his cabinet despite the obvious pressure from President # 5.

I have to check but I think my dad was the witness when Puan got married . . . like most of other Soekarno children my father was involved because of his close relation with Soekarno.

This is the political game that's going on now. Jokowi  became the presidential candidate because Megawati’s party--PDIP –chose and supported . Mega’s game plan in the beginning was to have herself and Jokowi as one ticket.

In 2004 the ticket to oppose SBY had been Mega and Prabowo as president and VP.

But SBY won. So Mega split with Prabowo and Prabowo started a new party which is Gerindra.

Indonesia’s second president, Soeharto, belonged to the Golkar party. Prabowo married Titiek Soeharto.  They divorced after Soeharto’s downfall, and became very distant.

But Prabowo used his relation with the Soeharto family during the presidential campaign, and of course this infuriated Mega. On the other hand, both Mega’s and Prabowo’s parties, PDIP and Gerindra, supported Jokowi when he ran for Jakarta Governor, especially since Ahok, the deputy governor, is from Gerindra.

[is your head hurting?  Me, I need 6 aspirin and a nap.]

FYI JKW and Prabowo have not yet met with each other during Lebaran, although both came to see President SBY.

Hatta’s youngest daughter, was once very much a Gerindra activist but she soon quit Gerindra after she found out that she was just being used.

So Prabowo has used the daughters of Soekarno, Hatta  and Soeharto. 

Quite the trifecta of sleaze.

Does not this sound like a soap opera...?

In other news:

I celebrated Lebaran at the Indonesian Embassy in Hanoi with a friend who’s at the Islamic National Bank in Kuala Lumpur. The food, especially the lontong cap go meh, was superb and most of my fellow countrymen were well behaved.  Except for one senior diplomat who argued that Jokowi is very bad for the country and will make Indonesia bankrupt within one year. When I suggested that he give JKW time to prove himself over the next 5 years, and that the worst case scenario is we can impeach him if he is so bad, this diplomat became unfriendly.

Thank God the food was so good . . . or else my shoe was ready to fly over his head. . . .

Who says politics is boring?

At last the Rohingya are back in the news . . .and as usual it’s not good

UN Myanmar envoy worried over displaced Muslims

The Washington Post, July 26  AP

YANGON, Myanmar — The new U.N. human rights envoy for Myanmar expressed serious concern about the conditions in camps for more than 100,000 mostly minority Muslims displaced by violence led by Buddhist extremists, and warned that the country’s human rights situation may be deteriorating.

Yanghee Lee spoke Saturday at the end of a 10-day fact-finding mission to Myanmar, her first in the capacity of U.N. rapporteur. She said Myanmar should be applauded for having come a long way since installing an elected government in 2011 after almost five decades of repressive military rule.

[You know, I am getting a little tired of hearing this --every time someone wants to point to the inhumane and despicable treatment of Rohingya they feel they have to throw the Myanmar government a bone.  “It’s a lot better than it was” has not helped the non-Buddhist minority one bit, ever. “Hey, they have free and fair elections now . . . and of course they’re deliberately starving over 100,000 people but you can’t have everything, right?  Baby steps, right?"] 

“Yet, there are worrying signs of possible backtracking, which if unchecked could undermine Myanmar’s efforts to become a responsible member of the international community that respects and protects human rights,” she said, after talks with political and social leaders and trips to troubled areas of the country.  [does she mean that Myanmar should be making these efforts, or that she believe it is currently making these efforts?  And how has any treatment of the Rohingya confirmed this?]

In recent months, the government has failed to make much progress in ending religious conflicts and ethnic tensions, and journalists have been coming under legal assault after an initial period of goodwill that saw the lifting of censorship.

Facing growing international criticism, Myanmar announced this week it was allowing international aid organizations to return to a western region they were expelled from earlier this year after Buddhist mobs disrupted their work helping displaced Rohingya Muslims. [big of them]

Lee visited western Rakhine state, where since 2012, violence between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims has left at least 280 people dead and 140,000 homeless, mostly Muslims confined in squalid camps. Myanmar is overwhelmingly Buddhist, and most Rohingya are denied citizenship.

“The situation is deplorable,” she said, reading to reporters from a 10-page statement. She said she believed camp residents did not have adequate access to basic services and had heard “disturbing reports” of people dying in the camps due to the lack of emergency medical care and failure to adequately treat preventable illnesses and pregnancy-related conditions.

“By virtue of their legal status (or lack of), the Muslim community has faced and continues to face systematic discrimination, which include restrictions in the freedom of movement, restrictions in access to land, food, water, education and health care, and restrictions on marriages and birth registration,” Lee said. She added she was concerned that “the government’s plan for long-term peaceful coexistence may likely result in a permanent segregation” of the Buddhist and Muslim communities.

[So: I’m confused.  What part of the Myanmar administration is it, exactly, that deserves all this international praise?]

What was originally a localized conflict in Rakhine state has turned into a sometimes violent campaign led by Buddhist extremists against Muslims in other parts of the country, and Lee warned that “the recurring outbreak of intercommunal violence reveals deep divisions and a growing polarization between Muslim and Buddhist communities.” [Growing????  You think it could get any bigger??]

She called for a law banning hate speech, saying she was concerned by its spread “and incitement to violence, discrimination and hostility in the media and on the Internet, which have fuelled and triggered further violence.” She also called for the withdrawal of a legislative package on the so-called protection of race and religion that would limit the civil rights of the Muslim community.

Lee said she would present her findings later this year to the U.N. General Assembly.

Aun San Suu Ki, we hardly knew ye . . . 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/un-myanmar-envoy-worried-over-displaced-muslims/2014/07/26/199da886-152e-11e4-ac56-773e54a65906_story.html

Bll Clinton's Visit to Aceh: unfortunately, he saw far less than half the picture

Lots of media outlets covered President Clinton’s visit to Aceh last Sunday.  Since we were posting abut the elections, I didn’t chime in.

But now, the coast, as they say, is clear.

Let me just start by saying I’ll be visiting the offices of the Clinton Global Initiative in August to speak to one of the officers there about some information that either wasn’t given to President Clinton during his visit, wasn’t reported on, or both. [the quotes below are taken from the Wall Street Journal and the Jakarta Post.]

I know that the CGI and the Clinton Foundation are not in the business of badmouthing recovery efforts and humanitarian initiatives.  So there couldn’t have been an article coming out of their office that did anything but heap praise upon Aceh’s progress in the 10 years since the tsunami.

But seriously.  Who are we kidding?

Apart from the initial medial and shelter crisis tat was addressed admirably, I have yet to hear of one project--whether it be road reconstruction, airport/port rebuilding, housing projects, or my favorite—“sustainable livelihoods—“ that has been successfully taken over and maintained by wither the Acehnese/Indonesian government or local organization. 

As the Post reported, President Clinton “wanted to see the level of recovery and development that has been achieved during the post-tsunami rehabilitation and reconstruction process.”  [Aceh was hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami on Dec. 26, 2004.] “Clinton has visited Aceh several times in the past. The founder of the Clinton Foundation was at one time the United Nation’s special envoy for tsunami relief, who raised money for tsunami victims under the administration of former president George W. Bush.”

Clinton visited several sites around greater Banda Aceh/Aceh Besar, which while admirable for any foreign dignitary, doesn’t really tell the story of the rest of the province. He met with Aceh Governor Zaini Abdulah and Nanggroe Aceh customary leader Malik Mahmud Al Haytar.

“During his tour, Clinton was also accompanied by the head of the Presidential Working Unit for the Supervision and Management of Development (UKP4), Kuntoro Mangkusubroto.”  And where have we heard that name before?   Yes, you guessed it, Pak Kuntoro, director of BRR, the agency developed to oversee the reconstruction process and after an admirable start became so horribly mismanaged that it closed with no records, no database of projects, an not a soul left to confirm where any of the money went.

Any of it.

“Clinton praised the well-coordinated reconstruction efforts in Aceh.
‘This disaster united the international community and non-governmental organizations in cooperation to help the reconstruction of Aceh,’ he said.”

And he came to this conclusion how???

See, that’s the problem.  If there is no one here refuting those claims, if there are no local NGOs or local media left to talk about the EDFF and multi-donor fund process, if there is no one from the World Bank who is going to admit that well, yes, we kind of lost track of the money, or rather we tracked it on paper but never went to the field to view the projects that the multi-donor fund was supposed to implement, or if we did see the projects we didn’t ask local people if they had wanted the projects in the first place, and we certainly have no idea if anything is still standing now.” Because it’s a big, rugged, spooky province, full of bad roads and impenetrable jungle and furious separatists promised the world but given nothing, and it’s just as easy to say “Oh, I’m sure the reconstruction went well.” Or to read a press brief by one of the multinational NGOs who made a fortune out of this disaster.  No one knows what local NGOs think about the effort . . . because over 90% were bankrupted by the reconstruction money.

So I’m wondering: exactly why do I want to set President Clinton and the Clinton Global Initiative straight?  Will it do anyone anywhere any good to know that a significant portion of the world’s largesse 10 years ago never made it to the people who needed it most?  It will only sour us to making these donations when disaster strikes, and I certainly don’t want that.  What I would like, though, is for there to be an honest oversight of the funds and the projects, and that someone, somewhere, has a real idea of what sustainability means.  And it doesn’t mean spending hundreds of millions fixing a road and then letting it fall apart.  It doesn’t mean putting a $6 million livelihood project on paper and then never checking to see if he implementer actually followed through.  It doesn’t mean getting $3 million for a project to train ex-combatants to be forest rangers and expect them to go back into their communities and arrest friends and family members.

I think President Clinton and the Clinton Foundation can make a huge difference in Aceh, especially with Jokowi as president.  But both of them need to start from an accurate and truthful picture of what happened to all that money, and where to go from here.

How quickly joy turns into steely-eyed (but justifiable) skepticism . . .

Dear Sara,

Yes this is just a first step on a long and rocky road for Indonesia.

Let's give Jokowi cautious but optimistic support with the hope that Mega steps aside (which I doubt) or that JKW, for politeness’ sake only, "listens" but makes his own sound judgments and takes independent action.

I will give him one year. [she's tough, is Wati.]

In this context the one thing I would start to disagree with is if his wife keeps wearing the jilbab.  She never wore it until JKW was accused being non-Muslim.

As for Prabowo and that snob Hasyim, I hope they continue their own business and stay away, but I agree with you that they will create trouble--first by using the extremist Islam position and accusing the Muslims supporting JKW as being the Syiah group [Shia; the minority faction,  has some fundamental differences of opinion with Sunni Muslims regarding the successor of the Prophet. In some instances the group has been vilified and called “terrorists.”] . What the heck, so what?! 

And I think Prabowo should concentrate on recover[ing] his financial losses that piled up because of all those payoffs he made during the election. [I love Wati.  So soft-spoken and diplomatic. :)

Extra tidbit: Recalling his childhood with his brother Prabowo: “My elder brother is very tough. When I was still small, I was often beaten,” said Hashim, as quoted by kompas.com.]

And second by accusing JKW giving preference to foreign investors and / or China.

Note: there is rumour that JKW is very close to James Riady [Chinese Indonesian deputy chairman of the Lippo Group, a major Indonesian conglomerate.]

JKW is now at the KPU office; after that he will give his victory speech in a Phinisi boat in Sunda Kelapa. [nice!]

Public opinion sees this as a gesture that JKW will make maritime interests an important part ofhis administration’s policy.

Will be in touch

Hidup Jokowi!!

Love

Wati 

Jokowi’s acceptance speech:

Pidato pertama presiden pilihan kita :

m.detik.com/news/read/2014/07/22/230722/2645297/1562/ini-pidato-pertama-jokowi-sebagai-presiden-terpilih

Who reported it first? The Dallas Morning News. Go, Texas! (first time THAT ever came out of my lips)

Jakarta governor wins Indonesian presidency

Posted: Jul 22, 2014 4:20 AM EDT Updated: Jul 22, 2014 12:23 PM EDT

By NINIEK KARMINI and ALI KOTARUMALOS
Associated Press

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Jakarta Gov. Joko Widodo, who captured the hearts of millions of Indonesians with his common man image, was declared the winner Tuesday of the country's presidential election, calling it a victory for all of the nation's people.

A former furniture exporter known to most as "Jokowi," Widodo was the first candidate in a direct presidential election in Indonesia with no ties to the former dictator Suharto, who ruled for 30 years before being overthrown in 1998.

"This is a victory for all Indonesian people," Widodo, who received 53 percent of the vote, according to the Election Commission, said in a televised speech. "We hope this victory will pave the way to build Indonesia to be an independent economy."

The other contender in the July 9 election, former Gen. Prabowo Subianto, declared he was withdrawing from the contest shortly before the final numbers were released by the commission, saying there was massive fraud during the election, and that it was unfair and undemocratic.

. . . .

"We reject the 2014 presidential election, which is illegitimate, and therefore we withdraw from the ongoing process," he said Tuesday.

Observers of the election said they were generally fair and free, with minimal abnormalities. Maswadi Rauf, a political professor at the University of Indonesia, said he saw no sign of significant fraud, as alleged by Subianto.

Subianto's rejection of the results "reflects the real attitudes of the elite, who are not yet ready to accept losing," Rauf said. "We are still in a transition to democracy, which is indeed not our culture. And what is happening indicates we are still immature, we need to learn."

There were no immediate reports of violence Tuesday. About 100 Subianto supporters held a peaceful protest about 300 meters (yards) from the Election Commission building in downtown Jakarta, chanting "Prabowo is the real president" and holding banners saying that the commission should stop cheating.

. . .

Final results showed that Widodo, from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, received just under 71 million votes, or 53 percent of the more than 133 million valid ballots cast, while Subianto got 62.6 million votes, or 47 percent.

Voter turnout was 71 percent, down slightly from the 2009 presidential election, when it was 72 percent.

And the Jakarta wags weigh in:

Dear Wati

I have been following the BBC, Jazeera and Reuters and have only just received news of the declaration which was eventually made at 20.00 hrs JKT time, two hours after promised declaration. No indication yet of any public reaction, or of any post-declaration reaction from the loser. It would go some way to resuscitating his reputation if he were to offer gracious acceptance. I never met Prabowo but his brother Hashim/Hasyim was chairman of “my” company’s JV so I met him many times at meetings and during VIP visits, etc. and he projected himself well without any sense of arrogance. But that was 20 years ago.

BTW I have attached a tabulation of US Presidential vote results back to 1900. The 6.3% superiority is strangely close to the McKinley/Bryan result of 1900, and more than eight of the 28 subsequent results. Not exactly a landslide but certainly a clear majority that even Mayhor Daly would have found difficult to fix.

May the presidential transition progress securely and in short,  “Hidup Indonesia!”

T

Thank you T.

Regretfully people change. As I mentioned I know Prabowo relatively well. He came when my dad passed away . I went to his son ( with Titiek Soeharto)’s first fashion show in the Hotel du Crillon in Paris 3 years ago and met him there.

Prabowo’s chief assistant and deputy chairman in Gerindra, Fadli Zon, know me well. We met many times since his library in Jkt (financed by Hasyim) has a collection of my dad’s speeches, a few of which we don't even have in in my dad’s library.

Hasyim came with his father the late Pak Sumitro  when the overseas trust bank (OTB ) in Hong Kong opened its representative office when  I was the chief rep.  

But I was surprised to see the arrogance of their attitude in recent interviews as compared to the Humbleness of Jokowi, whom I never met.

I think such is life . . . people change for better or worse.

Will be in touch

Wati

There it is, friends.

What does it mean for Aceh, cocoa farming, and continuing destruction of the rainforest?  We shall see . . . but we will not hold our breaths.

The election count that wouldn’t die . . .

So first it’s “either Monday or Tuesday.”  Then it’s “Tuesday.”  Then it’s “4pm today” (which has passed, by the way, in Jakarta.)  It’s more painful to sit through than a Broadway turkey.

But foreign correspondent Wati has added some Minolos-on-the-ground reportage, which makes it bearable. (She is actually in Vietnam at the moment, madly IM-ing her friends in the ‘hood.)

The latest:

Good morning from uncle Ho to Uncle Sam.

I've been exchanging emails until way after midnight just before sahur (the meal you take at dawn, during Ramadan).

So much to do that I missed my sahur last night. Even though I usually skip food and only drink a glass of water . . .

So:  the name of our new president next October is JOKO WIDODO, in short JOKOWI-- a person from humble origins who has defeated the super rich and arrogant elites . . . I am proud of my country.

Sara, I also did not trust JKW’s "cleanliness" either but after listening and watching his performance ( which was either genuine or pure acting) I must say I want to give him a chance to bring about change. In fact he has done it by giving Jakarta’s poor residents a free health card, free school and moved few families who lived in shacks along the Jakarta riverbank to low cost apts. Of course he has not completed this program yet.

If nothing else, there is a glimpse of hope if we watch his actions as governor.

On the other hand, I was distressed to watch the performance of the Cendana family. I  doubt that if Pak Harto (Suharto) were still alive, he would not want Ical Bakrie nor Amien Rais and  PKS joining his Golkar paty.

In this context, I watched few Gerindra utube where it showed PRW [Prabowo]  using Mega and Halida Hatta to promote his image as close to Soekarno- Hatta legacy.

Meanwhile around his ranch he showed how he try to have " bibit unggul" by cross-breeding goats, exactly the concept used for cows in Pak Harto’s TAPOS! [Tapos was a 700-HA former Dutch-owned ranch that then- President Suharto used as a kind of agricultural “best practices” demo farm, and made gifts of the superior cross-bred animals to various dignitaries.]

But PRW did not mention a word that he copied this program from TAPOS.

Finally, Titiek [Prabowo-s ex-wife] seemed unaware that she was being used by her ex husband and willing to support PRW openly in public.

Unlike Mega[wati] and Halida, who that left PRW long time ago. . .

Jokowi is a member of Megawati’s party and surprisingly as the chairman of the party Mega entrusted Jokowi as the party candidate. On a personal note:  as much as my personal relation became strained with Mega, I respected her choice and the stand she took.

Mega just announced Jokowi as the winner tonight and there were tears in her eyes.

The final count: Jokowi 53.15%  Prabowo 46.85% from 33 provinces.

Done. Election finished . . . young people on social media are having a great time calling Prabowo a childish cowboy (he has tens of hectares of ranch with 130 horses . . . ) [I still want that horse I saw him  on a few months ago]

One twitter post claimed this is a good day and proved that Prabowo indeed has great talent. That is because it has been almost 2 years that Jokowi has been Jakarta’s governor and he is still unable to resolve Jakarta’s traffic nightmare. But today, after Prabowo made his decision [to contest the election], the whole city is deserted and like a ghost town....

[email a few hours later]

Breaking news

Prabowo, candidate no 1, has rejected the election committee’s result which will be announced within 1 hr. [and we saw how they kept to THAT promise.]

He accused the committee of acting against our constitution. [Nice work, since he thought they were in his pocket and they recused themselves—gosh I hate it when ethics rules the day, don’t you?]

Why did he wait until the end to protest? 

Our news broadcasts are now saying that if you are in a game then you have to protest before the game starts or after it has finished.

Interestingly, his running mate (Hatta who happens to be the in-law of president SBY) was not there when Prabowo contested this election.

Indonesia is now entering democracy with the style of Wild West...I guess.

So I wrote her back:

Thanks so much Wati. It is such great news. Now maybe the global community will put Prabowo back on the lists they had him on and forbid him entrance.  Unfortunately, I feel that it is the beginning of a really hard time for Indonesia. This crazed lunatic will not take this lying down. He is going to fight and I doubt it will be clean. Do you remember when Gus Dor won and PDI Struggle took to the street with violence and in the end Mega was VP, soon to be President. As they say, it is not over to the fat lady sings and I do not think that she has uttered one note yet. I hope that I am wrong and am just an old cynic who has seen to much.

Thanks for being the greatest foreign correspondent--but your job is far from over!!

The latest news snippet:

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/07/22/indonesia-awaits-new-president.html

Despite complaints from the Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa presidential candidate ticket, the General Elections Commission (KPU) has invited the pair, along with front-runner Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and running mate Jusuf Kalla, to attend the announcement of the 2014 presidential election result today.

KPU chairman Husni Kamil Manik said on Monday that neither ticket was obliged to come to the meeting to officiate the winner, but both were welcome to attend.

“The national tabulation process has run well and there is no doubt that we will announce the winner tomorrow,” he said.

The KPU is scheduled to declare the winner at 4 p.m. Tuesday.

The official vote tally at the KPU headquarters in Jakarta had reviewed results from 22 of 33 provinces as of Monday night. According to earlier vote-count results, Jokowi-Kalla was in the lead with a total of 41,127,377 votes, or 51.4 percent of the total of about 80 million legitimate votes.

Jokowi was winning in 14 provinces while Prabowo was leading in the remaining eight provinces.