T

he Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) announced Wednesday afternoon that it had filed a lawsuit with the Constitutional Court (MK) in Jakarta to contest the result of the recent Bali gubernatorial election, in which its candidates suffered a narrow defeat.

'We have filed the lawsuit today [Wednesday] and we are optimistic that by pursuing this legal avenue we will be able to safeguard the votes of Bali's people,' Arteria Dahlan, advocacy team representative of PDI-P, told The Jakarta Post by phone on Wednesday.

A commissioner with the Bali General Elections Commission (KPUD), who travelled to Jakarta in anticipation of the lawsuit, confirmed that he had seen the PDI-P advocacy team entering the court building at around 3:30 p.m.

The party's intention to pursue the legal angle was made public on Monday, one day after the KPUD completed its ballot recapitulation and declared that incumbent governor Made Mangku Pastika and Ketut Sudikerta, who are endorsed by a coalition of nine political parties, including the Golkar and Democratic parties, were the winners of the election. The official announcement crushed the hopes of PDI-P-endorsed candidates AAN Puspayoga and his running mate Dewa Sukrawan, who for days after the May 15 election had continuously claimed the win.

The commission's final count revealed that Pastika had a slight lead of 996 votes over Puspayoga. Pastika won 1,063,734 votes, or 50.02 percent of the total vote, while Puspayoga won 1,062,738 votes, or 49.98 percent of the total.

'We are convinced that the PDI-P candidates should win the election based on our internal recapitulation of voting results. We allege that there was manipulation of the vote count process that disadvantaged our candidates,' Dahlan said.

In the 125-page lawsuit, PDI-P accused the KPUD of conspiring with the Pastika-Sudikerta team to tamper with the vote count process.

'We demand the court order a recount to get valid data for the election result,' he said.

In the document, the PDI-P team also claimed that Pastika's election team had committed massive fraud and intimidated PDI-P supporters. Therefore, they demanded the court order a revote in 138 polling stations in Karangasem regency.