Jakarta. West Java finally concluded the vote count from the Feb. 14 presidential and legislative elections and certified the results on Tuesday after multiple delays, just a day ahead of the deadline.

General Election Commission (KPU) Chairman Hasyim Asy'ari criticized the protracted delays in West Java’s certification when the vast majority of provinces already submitted the official results several weeks ago,

The slow process puts West Java on par with remote provinces in eastern Indonesia including Maluku, Papua Mountains, Southwest Papua, and Papua which become the last to certify and submit the election results.

Five years ago, West Java concluded the certification of election results across electoral districts in the province 12 days ahead of the deadline.

"Now we have to wait until a day before the deadline while the number of regents and cities [in West Java] remains the same. They owe us an explanation,” Hasyim said.

The provincial election office argued that West Java has the most voters and polling stations compared with all other provinces in the country.

"We have 140,457 polling stations and 153 electoral districts. There are around 35 million registered voters in West Java,” said Ummi Wahyuni, the head of KPU’s West Java office.

Her team had previously promised to certify the results on Monday but was postponed by another day due to prolonged vote counting in Bekasi.

"We apologize for being very late at the national recapitulation forum," Ummi said.

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