T

he Jakarta Police withdrew its high-alert status in the capital just a day after the General Elections Commission (KPU) announced the final presidential election result, declaring Jakarta Governor Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo and Jusuf Kalla the president-elect and vice president-elect on Tuesday.

'€œFrom today we have withdrawn all the reinforcements at the KPU building and we declare that the high-alert status in the city has been revoked,'€ Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto told reporters on Wednesday.

During the high-alert status, 31,000 personnel from the police and military were deployed across Jakarta for the announcement of the presidential election result. As many as 3,400 were ordered to guard the KPU office to prevent any kind of violence.

Rumors of the possibility of civil unrest in the city began circulating after presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto refused to concede defeat to Jokowi on election day, July 9, based on quick-count results.

Rikwanto said that the Jakarta Police and National Police had worked in a joint team together with the military, the Transportation Ministry and other stakeholders to maintain security in the capital.

'€œThe city'€™s situation is under control; there were no incidents even though one of the presidential candidates declared that he would walk away from the race,'€ Rikwanto said.

He added that the police had maintained security, especially at the KPU building during the vote recapitulation, from morning to 11 p.m. on Tuesday, and made sure that people left the building and surrounding areas without incident.

As the presidential election has been concluded, the Jakarta Police'€™s reinforcements now will focus on the Idul Fitri holiday and any possibility of a prolonged election-result dispute.

Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Dwi Priyatno said that there would be police officers guarding the Constitutional Court over the next three days, in the event that the Prabowo-Hatta Rajasa pair filed a judicial review against the KPU'€™s decision.

'€œFor the next three days we will stand by at the Constitutional Court [compound] to maintain security for the presidential election result'€™s judicial review,'€ Dwi said as quoted by kompas.com.

Dwi said that even though the election ran smoothly and no serious threats had been detected in relation to the judicial review, the police would nevertheless focus on securing the latter stage of the election process.

On Wednesday, Rikwanto added that the police would also turn their focus to a security operation during the Idul Fitri holiday called Operation Ketupat 2014, which will run from July 22 to Aug. 6.

'€œSince we have withdrawn our personnel from the KPU office, we will focus on Operation Ketupat,'€ Rikwanto said. (idb)