Doubtful Quick Counts

Only few hours after the voting places were closed at 12 noons yesterday, TV stations have started to announce the preliminary results of ballot counting, popularly known as the Quick Count.

Political parties who were announced as losers such as Indonesian Democratic Party in Struggle (PDIP), Golkar Party, and Gerindra Party, said that the Quick Counts were inaccurate, and they accused that certain party has paid the survey institutes that announced the Quick Counts.

This accusation reminds me of an article I read yesterday morning in the Kompas Newspaper Page 3 about Election Survey Institutes that have been hired by political parties as their political consultants.
One of them is Lingkaran Survey Indonesia headed by Denny J.A. who admitted that PDIP has hired his institute as consultant.
The next one is Charta Politica headed by Arya Bima who admitted that President SBY’s Democrat Party has hired his institute as consultant.
However, both institutes denied that they would be biased in announcing the Quick Count, they said that their professionalism would enable them to separate their job as consultant for the party, and as surveyor.

But another survey institute i.e. Lembaga Survey Indonesia headed by Saiful Mujani has denied allegations that his institute has been hired by the Democrat Party. He said that it is MetroTV who has financed the survey conducted by his institute.

Considering the above, I hope that our society in general and the news media in particular would not take the Quick Count too seriously and wait until the General Election Commission made its announcement on the result of ballot counting.