T

he camp of presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto was said to be outraged by one US news media report on Wednesday, but was pleased with another made by a different news outlet, although the latter was later discovered to be a hoax.

Prabowo-Hatta Rajasa campaign team spokesman Tantowi Yahya lambasted the US Ambassador to Indonesia, Robert O. Blake Jr., following his interview with US publication The Wall Street Journal, in which the US envoy called on the Indonesian government to look into reports of human rights abuses allegedly committed by Prabowo before and around the fall of his former father-in-law and president Soeharto in May 1998.

'€œIt'€™s unethical for a foreign diplomat such as the US ambassador to be involved in the matter because allegations surrounding Pak Prabowo'€™s role in human rights violations are an Indonesian domestic affair, thus, we must solve them in our own way,'€ said Tantowi.

The Golkar legislator and well-known country singer added, '€œI believe that the US would also get angry if our ambassador intervened in issues regarding any US public officials. '€

Citing Blake, the Journal reported on June 22 that although the US did not favor either of the two presidential candidates contesting the July 9 election, it took allegations of human rights abuses seriously.

'€œWe do not take a position on Indonesia'€™s presidential candidates. We do, however, take seriously allegations of human rights abuses, and urge the Indonesian government to fully investigate the claims,'€ Blake said as quoted by the Journal in an email.

The US Embassy'€™s press attaché, Troy Pederson, declined to comment on the matter, saying only '€œWe don'€™t have anything to add'€ when asked for clarification on the issue by The Jakarta Post.

The Prabowo camp has accused the growing movement against the candidate of being the result of smear campaigning. The Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu), however, cleared Gen. (ret) Wiranto on Wednesday of any wrongdoing for his statement that, as a military chief in 1998, he was aware that Prabowo had committed crimes in relation to the kidnapping of anti-Soeharto activists.

Meanwhile, supporters of Prabowo'€™s rival Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo were said to have been shocked late Tuesday night upon reading on social media about results that were allegedly collected by the highly respected US survey agency Gallup.

The Gallup findings, which appeared on CNN online, claimed that a recent survey found the presidential candidate pair of Prabowo-Hatta was trumping competitors Jokowi and Jusuf Kalla in the popularity stakes, with 52 percent of respondents supporting the former to win over the latter'€™s 41 percent.

However, netizens later found the article to be false, as it had been doctored based on a report about the 2008 US presidential race between the Democratic Party'€™s Barack Obama and Republican politician John McCain.

CNN pulled the post from its website.

The survey company also denied the report. '€œ[The] Prabowo prediction [was] fake and not released by Gallup, Inc., headquartered in Washington, DC,'€ Gallup'€™s global communications director, Johnathan Tozer, said in an email to the Post on Wednesday evening.

The Prabowo camp, however, chose to ignore the denials and continued to use the bogus report to promote its candidate.

Tribunnews.com reported that Baron Basuning from the Prabowo camp repeatedly told Prabowo'€™s supporters at the candidate'€™s office in East Jakarta on Wednesday that the former lieutenant general would easily win the July 9 presidential race, quoting the fake Gallup report.

'€œAccording to the results of CNN survey, Prabowo-Hatta will gain 52 percent and Jokowi-Kalla is lower,'€ Baron said. (tjs)