Rioters burn Palopo city center

Andi Hajramurni, The Jakarta Post, Makassar | Archipelago | Sun, March 31 2013, 9:49 PM

A newspaper office and four other office buildings in Palopo City, South Sulawesi, was set blaze by angry mob on Sunday shortly after the Palopo elections commission declared Judas Amir the new Palopo mayor.

Hundreds of protesters, dissatisfied with the result, attacked the Palopo Pos office, the mayor’s office, the Golkar Party office, the election monitoring committee office and the Wara Timur district office.

In the second round of election Judas gained 37,469 votes while the runner up Haidir Basir got 36,731, only 738 votes less.

“Around 1:00 p.m., local time, on Sunday, the Haidir’s supporters attacked our officers with stones and Molotov cocktails,” Palopo police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Endang Rasidin told The Jakarta Post.

Police concentrated on the KPUD Palopo office but within a few minutes, the Gokar office caught fire.

The mob attacked the Palopo Panwaslu office before they moved on to the Palopo mayor’s office.

“We are still looking for the perpetrators of the attack because during the incident, the supporters of the two candidates as well as the ordinary people were at the locations,” said Endang. (asw/ebf)