The Moustache wins!

The moustache finally wins. But never had I expected that the governor election would be this dramatic.

I've promised on my previous post that I'll give updates on the election. So, here's what has happened in the past week:

> The quick counts from 3 independent organizations have informed that Khofifah (not Karwo, the moustache) has higher votes by 1%. Since margin error is 1%, none of these orgs dared to declare the election winner.

> Khofifah party and her supporters were overjoyed hearing this and assumed her win. The bouquet of flowers and congratulatory remarks were sent to her residency.

Karwo and his moustache were still hopeful and believed that they would win. They had nasi tumpeng to celebrate. I like nasi tumpeng, especially the perkedel. Bik Yah makes wickedly delicious perkedel btw, which I'm going to eat tonight. Slurp.

> While waiting for the official vote count announced on November 11th, Khofifah made the headline news by throwing an accusation of vote manipulation in several regions by the Karwo side. Karwo disregarded this accusation and kept eating his nasi tumpeng.

> On November 11th, the day of the official vote count, Megawati posted ads in newspapers, requesting all of her party followers to protect the legit win of Khofifah. In other words, should Khofifah lost, she endorses her followers to go out to the streets for demonstration and some form of civil anarchy. They happened to be very good at this activity.

There's a whole lot of politics behind Megawati's strong support to Khofifah. Karwo is the candidate from Democrat Party, which happens to be SBY's party. Khofifah is the candidate from PKB party. Megawati's candidate already lost in the first round.

If Megawati wants to win East Java on the presidential election, she has no other way but to support Khofifah. Khofifah herself has announced that she will be more than happy to support Megawati on her presidential bid. Such sell out that Khofifah.

> In order to maintain safety during the vote count, the road to the hotel where the votes being counted was closed. This happens to be the artery road of Surabaya, so a lot of business was being forced to close for a full day. Traffic jam was everywhere in downtown, wasting away the precious time and gasoline of the people of Surabaya.

1300 cops and 50 soldiers were put to the streets. There were also several water canons and tanks with the biggest bullets I've ever seen ready on the street. Thankfully, no demonstration or fights between candidates supporters occurred.

I wanted so bad to be there and take some pictures, but I have to work and Bik Yah and my mom would lock me out of the house if I really went.

> So, the verdict?
The Moustache won by 60 thousands votes, a win by 0.3%.
Total invalid votes is approx. 500 thousands.
Eligible voters who didn't vote is 15 million people, which is 49% of the total eligible voters. Isn't this hilarious or what? Turns out, the people don't give a damn who becomes the governor. Ha!

> So, is this the end of it?
Unfortunately, it's not. Khofifah doesn't accept the result, and will bring her case to the court. Supposedly, according to the law, the court result should be given in two weeks time, but that has never been the case here. Let's take a moment to give props to our bureaucratic efficiency! Anyway, the governor has to be elected before the year end, so this whole election saga will have to have its end by December.

> Meanwhile, Karwo is grateful to the result and celebrate his win by shaving his moustache. Wait a minute, what?!? This glorious moustache?

Dude, I voted the moustache, not you! Now after you win, you're ditching the moustache?!?! So much for being grateful pal.

Oh well, bye bye dear moustache, you will always be remembered. R.I.P.