It's IFES, not KPU's data

Kompas reported today that General Election Commission (KPU) has terminated the publication of vote counting from July 8 election on Thursday when only 38% of the promised polling stations included in the report. 

KPU said total votes counted and published was 18.88 million from 40,000 polling stations with overwhelming support for SBY-Boediono (61.66%), followed by Megawati-Prabowo (28.57%), and Kalla-Wiranto (9.77%). This is far below KPU's promise of 100,000 polling stations out of over 400,000 polling stations used in the election.

What's interesting about the report is the fact that the KPU tabulation, transmitted through SMS operated by Telkomsel, reported no data from six provinces (East Kalimantan, South Sulawesi, Maluku Utara, Maluku, Papua, and West Papua) where Kalla-Wiranto might have secured more votes.

Another interesting issue is the fact that it's not KPU who collected the data, but an NGO named International Foundation for Electoral System (IFES). IFES collected and provided the data to KPU, and KPU published them. SO, it's pretty much similar to pollsters. IFES is a Washington-based NGO. 

We know the fact after we read the results. KPU had only told public before that it will conduct its own "quick count" based on data collected from 104,000 polling stations. Why the independent institution didn't declare to public beforehand about the cooperation with IFES? Can we just assume a Washington-based NGO is an independent institution like KPU, free from "interests" to favor certain candidate? Why not honestly tell public that this data is collected and reported by IFES in KPU's tabulation?

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