Indonesia Presidential Election Case: Prabowo Subianto’s Legal Challenge
Today (06/08), the first session of defeated presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto’s legal challenge started. Based on data from the General Elections Commission (KPU), Indonesia’s July 2014 presidential election was won by Joko Widodo (Jokowi) with 53.15 percent to 46.85 percent of the votes. However, Subianto claims that the KPU’s outcome was influenced by fraud and other violations, leading to 50 million troubled votes in more than 200,000 Indonesian polling stations, and therefore challenges the result at the Constitutional Court.
The Subianto team claims that they should have won the presidential election with 50.25 percent of the votes provided that no violations would have taken place.
This first hearing involves an oral explanation from the Subianto camp in which they will substantiate why they claim that there have been violations in the voting as well as counting process. In this hearing Subianto emphasized more than once that he (and his running mate Hatta Rajasa) have been given the mandate of the people as they are supported by a coalition of seven political parties that represent 62 percent of the people (based on the result of the legislative election that was held on 9 April 2014).
The KPU has appointed 16 lawyers, led by senior advocate Adnan Buyung Nasution, to defend the institution in the court case. The KPU is accused of having conducted systematic and wide-spread election fraud, having conducted fraud in the vote counting process, and having neglected recommendations from the Election Supervisory Board (Bawaslu).
On 22 August 2014, the Constitutional Court (Mahkamah Konstitusi) is expected to publish its verdict.