Could July 28, 2009, go down in the history books as a watershed moment for fairness and justice in Indonesian politics? It’s certainly a long shot, but it is nothing less than what the two losing candidates in the July 8 presidential election are asking for as their teams prepare to file complaints at the Constitutional Court on Tuesday calling for the election to be annulled. The campaign teams of Vice President Jusuf Kalla and former President Megawati Sukarnoputri have publicly rejected official results announced over the weekend declaring incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono the runaway winner. They claim the final voters list contained at least 23 million duplicate names. They have until 11 a.m. on Tuesday to file appeals at the Constitutional Court, the final arbiter on the country’s legislative and presidential elections. Gayus Lumbuun, legal coordinator for Megawati and her running mate, Prabowo Subianto, told the Jakarta Globe that the team would lodge its petition at 9 a.m. on Tuesday. Kalla and his running mate, Wiranto, will also lodge a petition on Tuesday morning, said Burhanuddin Napitipulu, the chairman of the working committee of Kalla’s Golkar Party. But neither candidates’ campaigns have publicly released any evidence to support their claims. What they plan to submit to the Constitutional Court remains to be seen. If the court sees merit in their claims, it could order a vote recount or a partial or complete rerun of the election. One way or another, it has just one month to rule on their petitions. Earlier this year, the court ordered a handful of recounts and partial revoting in the East Java gubernatorial election. However, analysts doubted that it would throw out the entire presidential election unless overwhelming new evidence came to light. Topo Santoso, a legal analyst from the University of Indonesia, said the final results of the presidential polls carried solid legal and political weight even without the signatures of Megawati and Kalla. “The Election Law has anticipated the possibility of the losing candidates repudiating the results,” Santoso said. Political analyst Rocky Gersung said Kalla’s camp may simply be exercising its legal right to appeal before eventually accepting the results, while Megawati’s objections may be fueled by a personal rivalry with Yudhoyono. “Her attitude is disrupting political decency. It could be seen by many that she is not big enough to admit defeat,” Gersung said. He said the coming weeks would determine whether Megawati’s and Kalla’s claims of electoral fraud were the result of their desire for free and fair elections or an attempt to tarnish Yudhoyono’s runaway victory. “When the court gives its rulings on this issue, both [Kalla] and Megawati would have to admit defeat,” he said. “If not, people might see the moves as nothing more than political gimmickry.” On Saturday, the General Elections Commission (KPU) officially announced that Yudhoyono won with 60.8 percent of the vote. Megawati finished second with 26.79 percent, and Kalla came in third with 12.41 percent. Both losing candidates have refused to sign the official results. Of the two, only Kalla appeared at Saturday’s announcement at KPU headquarters. About an hour after the KPU ceremony, the Constitutional Court formed a team to handle election complaints. Under the Election Law, complaints must be submitted within 72 hours of the results being announced. In addition to claiming that the KPU left 23 million duplicate names on the final voters list, Megawati and Kalla have also claimed that millions of eligible voters were left off the list.
Author: The Jakarta Globe
Author: The Jakarta Globe
