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Regional leaders' support for incumbent not enough as proof of election fraud, justices say
The court also rejected the plaintiffs' claim that the Jokowi-Ma'ruf ticket's call on its voters to wear white shirts while casting their ballots on election day was a violation, arguing that the plaintiffs had failed to elaborate on the correlation between the call and the vote tally secured by the presidential candidates.
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The nine-panel bench leads a hearing on the 2019 presidential election dispute at the Constitutional Court in Central Jakarta on Thursday. (JP/Donny Fernando)
T
he Constitutional Court has rejected evidence by losing candidate pair Prabowo Subianto and Sandiaga Uno which suggested that regional leaders' support for Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and Ma'ruf Amin was proof of structured, systematic and massive fraud in the 2019 presidential election.
Justice Wahiduddin Adams said during a hearing on the presidential election dispute on Thursday that the case fell under the authority of the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu), which had acted upon the complaint regardless of its ruling.
The court said it could only act upon the case when the concerned authorities, in this case Bawaslu, had not followed up on the complaint.
Bawaslu had ruled that some regional heads had violated the 2014 law on regional administrations, which bars the leaders from taking sides in elections, but not the Elections Law.
"The plaintiffs did not include in their petition whether they had reported the alleged violations to Bawaslu, nor did they include Bawaslu's ruling on the cases as to whether there was structured, systematic and massive fraud," Justice Wadihuddin said.
The court also rejected the plaintiffs' claim that the Jokowi-Ma'ruf ticket's call on its voters to wear white shirts while casting their ballots on election day was a violation, arguing that the plaintiffs had failed to elaborate on the correlation between the call and the vote tally secured by the presidential candidates.
The court ruled there was no proof indicating that the call had intimidated voters nor did it affect the vote tally. (ars)
