P

olitical experts said that complaints filed with the Election Organization Ethics Council (DKPP) by a number of parties supporting the Prabowo-Hatta presidential campaign were unlikely to alter the result of the presidential election held on July 9.

On July 25, an organization called New Indonesia'€™s People Movement filed a complaint with the DKPP against the East Java General Elections Commission (KPUD).

The organization claimed that many people in East Java voted at polling stations in locations where they were not registered.

The voters in question, according to the complaint, failed to provide the A5 forms that would have established their legal right to vote at a polling station different from the one listed in the final voter list.

Veri Junaidi, executive director of the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem), said that New Indonesia'€™s People Movement would find it difficult to prove that the East Java KPUD had deliberately allowed voters to cast their votes without the A5 forms in a move to manipulate the result of the election.

'€œIf we isolate the administrative aspect, then voters must present A5 forms if they want vote in polling stations that they were not assigned to,'€ Veri told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

However, he pointed to the primacy of Article 19 of Law No.8/2012 concerning elections, which stipulates that every citizen over 17 years of age or who has been married has the right to cast a vote.

'€œThe DKPP should consider whether the East Java KPU attempted to support one of the candidates or just tried to grant people their right [to vote],'€ he said.

The DKPP was scheduled to hold a hearing of six complaints filed by various parties on Friday, all of which criticize the performance of either the KPU or the Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) as regulatory bodies overseeing the presidential election.

DKPP chairman Jimly Asshiddiqie said on Monday that five of the reports were filed by the team of the Prabowo-Hatta pair and one was filed by the Jokowi-Kalla team.

However, he emphasized that the DKPP could only impose sanctions on the KPU or Bawaslu if they were found to have abused their authority and that the body could not change the outcome of the election or order a revote.

'€œI have assured every party filing a report with the DKPP that we are not able of ordering a reelection or overturning the election result. That is the Constitutional Court'€™s (MK) authority,'€ Jimly told reporters.

Indonesian Voters Committee coordinator Jerry Sumampow commented on another report filed by Prabowo'€™s legal team on Jul. 21 that claimed the Jakarta KPUD had violated regulations by disobeying Bawaslu'€™s recommendation to hold revotes at 29 polling stations in Jakarta.

Jerry said that while Prabowo'€™s team had the legal standing to file the report, he did not believe that it would have an effect on the outcome of the election result.

'€œEven though they [the Prabowo campaign] can prove that the KPU should have held a revote in the disputed polling stations, [doing so] would do little to close the eight million vote gap separating the two pairs of candidates,'€ he said.

The Prabowo-Hatta team has been pursuing all possible legal means of challenging the final KPU'€™s announcement of the Jokowi-Kalla team as the winners of the presidential contest.

The Constitutional Court is scheduled to begin hearing the presidential election dispute trial filed by Prabowo'€™s camp that alleges systemic fraud had occurred at 52,000 polling stations and had involved 21 million votes on Wednesday.

Despite weaknesses in the lawsuits, the Prabowo-Hatta team has reiterated its optimism that the court would issue rulings in its favor. (idb)