Prabowo Subianto, a former special forces general with ties to Indonesia’s current president and past dictatorship, was confirmed the victor of last month’s presidential election over two former governors who have vowed to contest the result in court.
Prabowo won 58.6% of the votes, while former Jakarta Gov Anies Baswedan received 24.9% and former Central Java Gov. Ganjar Pranowo got 16.5%, the General Election Commission said on Wednesday after the official counting was completed.
Disputed win: (From left) Prabowo is now confirmed as the next president but Anies and Ganjar refuse to concede. — Reuters/AP/AFP
In Indonesia, election disputes can be registered with the Constitutional Court during the three days that follow the announcement of official results.
The two other candidates have alleged fraud and irregularities in the election process, such as the vice-presidential candidacy of President Joko Widodo’s son. The popular outgoing president is serving his second term and could not run again, but his son’s candidacy is seen as a sign of his tacit backing for Subianto.
Joko’s son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, is 37 but became Prabowo’s running mate after the Constitutional Court made an exception to the minimum age requirement of 40 for candidates.
The Constitutional Court’s chief justice, who is Joko’s brother-in-law, was then removed by an ethics panel for failing to recuse himself and for making last-minute changes to the election candidacy requirements.
Probowo, who is Joko’s defence minister, had claimed victory on election day after unofficial tallies showed he was winning nearly 60% of the votes.
Voter turnout for the Feb 14 election in the world’s third- largest democracy was about 80%, the commission said.
Prabowo won in 36 of 38 provinces and received 96.2 million votes compared to 40.9 million for Anies, the second-place finisher, who won in two provinces.
Anies, the former head of an Islamic university, won a massive majority in the conservative westernmost province of Aceh. His running mate was Muhaimin Iskandar, whose Islam-based National Awakening Party has strong ties with Indonesia’s largest Islamic organisation.
Ganjar, the candidate of the governing Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, received 27 million votes and did not win any provinces.
Both Anies and Ganjar have refused to concede and said they plan to challenge the official results in the Constitutional Court.
Todung Mulya Lubis, a prominent lawyer who represents Ganjar and his running mate, Mohammad Mahfud MD, said election irregularities occurred before, during and after the polls.
Joko has dismissed their fraud allegations and any manipulation of the judiciary or favouring of a particular pair of candidates, saying the election process was watched by many people, including representatives of the candidates, the election supervisory agency and security personnel.
“Layered supervision like this would eliminate possible fraud,” Joko said last month.
“Don’t scream fraud. We have mechanisms to solve the fraud. If you have evidence, take it to the Election Supervisory Agency, if you have evidence, challenge it to the Constitutional Court.”
The campaign teams of both Anies and Ganjar said they would provide evidence for their claims.
Hasto Kristiyanto, the secretary-general of the party that nominated Ganjar, said election irregularities were enforced from the top down, including hefty social aid in the middle of an election that was far bigger than the amount during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Todung said his team has had difficulty getting witnesses to testify in court due to intimidation by authorities. He acknowledged that successfully challenging the election result with such a wide official margin of victory will be difficult.
The new president will be inaugurated on Oct 20 and will have to appoint a Cabinet within two weeks. — AP
