Rivals for the presidency in Indonesia intend to challenge the official election results by claiming fraud
The camps of the two Indonesian presidential candidates who seem to have lost last month’s election announced on Thursday that they intend to file a constitutional court challenge to the official results, citing rampant fraud as justification.
On February 14, voters in Indonesia chose a new leader to replace the well-liked Joko Widodo, who is in his second and last term as president. Prabowo Subianto, the current minister of defense, is running against Anies Baswedan and Ganjar Pranowo, two former province governors, in a three-way campaign.
Since Widodo’s son is Subianto’s running mate for vice president, the former general is connected to previous violations of human rights and has the implicit support of the current president. On election day, Subianto declared victory when unofficial tallies indicated that he had received close to 60% of the vote.
As of Thursday, the General Election Commission had officially tabulated more than 78% of the votes, with Subianto receiving 58.82%, Baswedan receiving 24.50%, and Pranowo receiving 16.68%. Pranowo and Baswedan have accused electoral fraud and refused to accept defeat.
The Elections Law allows for a maximum of 35 days to be spent on the official vote-counting procedure, which is arduous and time-consuming. The election commission is anticipated to declare the official winner by March 20.
Representing Pranowo and his running companion Mohammad Mahfud is well-known attorney Todung Mulya Lubis, who stated, “I’m currently preparing a petition to go to the Constitutional Court.” “We only have one legal option to resolve the election disputes, and that option requires numerous witnesses and experts to testify.”
While Lubis acknowledged that there were anomalies in the election before, during, and after the elections, he also pointed out that his team has had trouble persuading witnesses to appear in court on the grounds that the government threatened them. He admitted that it would be contesting the election outcome with such a large margin of victory.
At a press conference on Thursday, Lubis informed international journalists, “There’s no way you can prove that, so we will argue that when we talk about election disputes, we are not only talking about the outcome of the election, but we are talking about the process of the election, prior to the election.”
He said that Gibran Rakabuming Raka, Widodo’s son, was likewise the subject of anomalies. Raka, who is 37, is able to run because the Constitutional Court granted an exemption to the minimum age limit of 40 for candidates.
Widodo’s brother-in-law, the current chief justice, was ousted by an ethics panel for failing to recuse himself and for altering the election candidacy conditions at the last minute.
The campaign team of Baswedan and his running companion, Muhaimin Iskandar, declared that they would bring charges before the Constitutional Court the day after the election results are declared, during the court’s three-day registration period.
Baswedan’s team includes former Chief Judge of the Constitutional Court Hamdan Zoelva. “There are strong indications that violations occurred in a structured, systematic and massive way in the presidential election,” Zoelva stated.
According to Baswedan, his group wants to ensure that anomalies aren’t “unchecked.”
Seven people were killed in violence in Jakarta as a result of Subianto’s refusal to accept the outcome of the 2019 presidential election, which pitted him against Widodo. The Constitutional Court has rejected Subianto’s attempts to annul Widodo’s victories in the last two elections and rejected his unfounded allegations of widespread fraud.
“We expect the Constitutional Court to be the guardian of the constitution, so this is the challenge for it,” Lubis stated.
