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‘People power’ and Prabowo’s projections
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Prabowo addressed hundreds of his supporters during mass prayers held in front of his house in South Jakarta. (Courtesy of/Prabowo-Sandiaga campaign team)
T
he April 17 elections have come and gone. Except that they haven’t, certainly not for Prabowo Subianto, Sandiaga Uno, their supporters and those who have a vested interest in the two becoming president and vice president for the 2019-2024 term.
The General Elections Commission (KPU) was supposed to announce the official result of the presidential elections on May 22, but surprised everyone by doing it earlier, just after midnight on May 21. This was presumably to avoid the use of “people power” threatened by Prabowo supporters, but the riots happened anyway. The authorities said eight were killed and over 700 injured.
The KPU announced the incumbent, Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, as the winner, garnering 55.5 percent of the vote compared to Prabowo’s 45.5 percent. However, the twice-failed presidential candidate refused to accept the results, claiming that a real count by his side showed he won 62 percent of the vote.
In a frantic, last gasp effort to overturn the election results, on the night of May 24, Prabowo’s legal team officially filed a lawsuit at the Constitutional Court.
The lawsuit contained seven demands: 1) grant all of the applicant’s demands; 2) declare the election results invalid; 3) declare that Jokowi and his VP candidate Ma’ruf Amin cheated; 4) disqualify them as election participants; 5) declare Prabowo and Sandiaga as elected president and vice president; 6) order the KPU to issue a decree stipulating them as elected president and vice president. Or...7) order the KPU to repeat the election.
Strangely, Bambang Widjojanto, a member of Prabowo’s legal team, doubted the independence and integrity of the Constitutional Court. So why file a lawsuit there then?
The team claims it is armed with “proof” that the implementation of the 2019 presidential election was carried out in a “structured, systematic and fraudulent manner… [including]…the misuse of the state budget, lack of neutrality of the state apparatus, misuse of the bureaucracy, restrictions on the media and discrimination in treatment and abuse of law enforcement”.
