Governor-hopeful Khofifah Indar Parawansa and her running mate, Mudjiono, are planning to file a lawsuit with the Constitutional Court.
The pair complained over what they described as systematic violations during the recent revote in Bangkalan and Sampang and during the vote recount in Pamekasan.
Khofifah rejected the results of the vote recount and rerun which she said were conducted contrary to official procedure.
Coordinator of Khofifah's legal team Sudiatmiko Aribowo said his client was waiting for the appropriate time given by the pro-vincial polling body to accept or reject the results of the vote recount and rerun.
"We don't want a vote recount at all polling stations but only certain trouble spots. We have evidence of major violations in certain polling stations in the two regencies and will file a complaint to the KPU in Jakarta and the Constitutional Court," he told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
These election violations forced Khofifah's officials to reject signing the official vote results at polling stations at the district and regency level.
During the revote conducted on Jan. 21, 2009, Khofifah complained about attacks which linked her with the former Indonesian Communist Party and Christianity. She also alleged that government employees in the two regencies were influenced to support her rival Soekarwo, who increased his vote tally after the revote. In addition, 1,400 eligible voters who supported Khofifah were not invited to the revote and many others were paid to vote for her rival.
The Constitutional Court ordered the vote recount in Pamekasan and the vote rerun in Bangkalan and Sampang after Khofifah's team filed a complaint about election violations during the second round.
A member of Khofifah's campaign team Choirul Anam said the campaign has also decided to reject the result of the vote recount in Pamekasan on Dec. 27, 2008 because it was conducted without an official procedure and the police did not probe the violations during the vote recount.
He cited that both the police and the election supervisory committee (panwaslu) remained silent on the disappearance of hundreds of votes from ballot boxes in Pamekasan.
"The police also did not comply with the Constitutional Court which ordered an investigation into vote rigging during the second round on Nov. 4, 2008," he said, citing that Soekarwo grabbed 210,052 votes to win a slim victory in the regency.
Dofirsyah, chairman of the polling body in Sampang, insisted that the revote's result in the regency was final and binding, and it has been delivered to the provincial KPU in Surabaya.
"It is better for Khofifah to accept the democratic results," he said.
In Bangkalan, Soekarwo won 252,981 votes while Khofifah gained only 144,238 votes.
Arief Budiman, a member of the provincial general election commission (KPUD), said Khofifah had the right to file a lawsuit against the KPUD but if it was rejected, the inauguration of Soekarwo as governor would be conducted on March 6, 2009.
He declined to comment on the chaotic vote count at an Islamic school in Bangkalan and the stabbing of a member of Khofifah's campaign in Pandang Lanjang village, Bangkalan.
The police were still investigating the two cases while Bangkalan regent Fuad Amin Imron, also a member of Soekarwo's campaign team, said the stabbing was not linked to the revote.
Hundreds of Madurese people supporting Soekarwo protested at the provincial polling body on Tuesday, saying the Khofifah camp was harassing Madurese people in its attempt to have the results of the vote recount and rerun annulled.
They said that Khofifah's statements about the vote recount and rerun were biased and provocative.
"The statement by Khofifah's campaign team that the vote recount was flawed and the demand for the annullment of their results represents harassment of the Madurese people," Dja'far Shodiq, coordinator of the forum for the Bangkalan and Sampang community, said.
