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Analysis: Election integrity undermined, post-polling violence becomes more likely
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The nine Constitutional Court justices preside over a hearing in this file photo. (JP/Seto Wardhana)
The integrity of the 2024 general election has been undermined by the recent decision to retain six justices on the Constitutional Court even though they have been found guilty of having committed ethics breaches when they issued a recent ruling related to the presidential election.
The court is the final arbiter of electoral disputes, and the continued presence of these six justices raises questions about the court’s credibility.
With the court’s integrity compromised, it could pave the way for the losing presidential candidates or political parties to reject the results of the election. In 2019, challenger Prabowo Subianto denounced the results after he lost the presidential election to the incumbent President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, proclaiming “massive, structured and systematic” fraud. His supporters went on a violent rampage outside the Elections Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) in Central Jakarta.
This has become a global trend, where the losing candidates reject election results and later incite supporters to violence. Donald Trump did it in the United States in 2021 after he lost to Joe Biden, and incumbent Jair Bolsonaro did so this year in Brazil after he too lost the election Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
No one should tamper with the election’s integrity, least of all the country’s highest court.
The Constitutional Court issued a ruling in October, with a 5-4 majority, that made an allowance for someone younger than the minimum age of 40 years to run for president or vice president provided they had served as an elected head of a regional government.
The timing of the ruling smacks of nepotism, as it came in time to allow the son of President Jokowi, 36-year-old Gibran Rakabuming Raka, to run for vice president. The court’s chief, Anwar Usman, is the husband of Jokowi’s younger sister. Uncle Anwar was clearly doing nephew Gibran a big favor.
