Indonesia’s election:

Aceh Province enjoys peaceful vote

INDONESIA: National elections in Indonesia’s Aceh province went ahead peacefully on Thursday following the murders in the lead-up to the vote of former rebels who had become politicians.

The general election for local assemblies and the national parliament is the first in the province on Sumatra island since a 2005 peace deal ended more than 30 years of civil war that killed 15,000 people.

The Aceh Party of former rebels of the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), allowed to participate in the election as part of the 2005 deal, was expected to dominate here.

However, there had been fears of violence after five formers rebels had been gunned down in recent months — believed to be connected to the elections.

“I believe the elections in Aceh are going safely, despite several quite sensitive areas,” Aceh Governor Irwandi Yusuf said.

Fadli, a 43-year-old builder who spent years commanding a GAM guerrilla unit in the mountains, said the vote was his first chance to peacefully shape the province’s future. “Today the Acehnese people vote for the future of democracy in Aceh. Us former members of GAM are participating in the elections for the first time,” Fadli said.

“Election results will be the basis to build a better future for Aceh. I hope that the Aceh Party will win,” he added.

Peaceful voting in Aceh was matched by largely orderly polling across Indonesia, a sprawling Muslim-majority archipelago of 171 million registered voters and the world’s third-largest democracy.

The exception was in the country’s restive eastern Papua region, where five people were killed in separate incidents overnight.

Nationwide, voting for the country’s parliament is expected to favour the Democratic Party of incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ahead of the presidential election in July. Banda Aceh, Thursday, AFP