News and Analysis, 16 December 2006, Outcome of Aceh Gubernatorial Election

Although the official polling results of the Aceh gubernatorial election are not planned be released until 2 January 2007, nearly a month after the 11  December election,  it is clear that the winner was the team of Irwandi Yusuf and Muhammad Nazar, who represented the younger generation of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). Estimates are that Irwandi Yusuf received about 39 percent of the vote giving him a clear and unchallenged majority. Best estimates are that about 75 percent of Aceh’s 2.6 million registered voters went to the polls. The U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, which fielded a team of about 40 U.S. officials to monitor the election in the capital of Banda Aceh and 13 of the 19 contested districts stated that the election was largely free, fair, and peaceful. The teams further reported that the election was generally free of intimidation and manipulation. However, some irregularities were noted, mostly administrative in nature concerning voter registration problems and incomplete voter lists. These findings were supported by NGO’s who also monitored the elections.  None of the issues reported were of a magnitude to effect the outcome of the election or appeared deliberately designed to derail or manipulate the voting process. Concerns that Indonesian security forces would attempt to influence the voting, restrict who could vote, or intimate those at the polling stations proved unfounded. (Comment – The election of Irwandi Yusuf as the first directly elected governor of Aceh should go a long way to help convince those within GAM who doubted the reconciliation process and that the Indonesian government is sincere in its commitment to the peace process, but there is still a long journey ahead for the people of Aceh. One only has to look to East Timor to see some of the difficulties that are likely ahead. In East Timor, free and fair elections held in 2002 saw former guerilla leader Xanana Gusmao, elected as President with high hopes that peace was finally at hand. However, four years later, East Timor is still a fractured country where societal tensions have recently boiled over, resulting in traumatic communal violence. The situation in Aceh is, of course, different but there remains much bad blood between those who fought or supported the different sides and factions over the last three decades in both far ends of Indonesia.) [slr]