Megawati's supporters holding signs outside the court during the trial.The Constitutional Court on Wednesday turned down demands for a presidential election revote from the two losing candidates, Megawati Sukarnoputri and Jusuf Kalla. “We reject all of the plaintiffs’ demands,” said Mahfud MD, the court’s chairman, reading out the verdict. Mahfud said the ruling was based on the inability of the plaintiffs to substantiate their allegations of vote rigging and voters list inaccuracies. Megawati and Kalla, who placed second and third in the presidential poll, respectively, have argued that various problems, including a flawed voters list, a reduced number of polling stations, electoral assistance from foreign institutions, and vote rigging, had made the results of the election invalid. “None of the problems could be described as structural, systematic or massive,” Mahfud said. “We only found 3.6 million duplicate voters. But the KPU [General Elections Commission] has already deleted those names. Even if they were not deleted, they wouldn’t have changed the final result,” he said. Another judge, Maria Farida Indrati, reportedly slammed the KPU for its lack of professionalism in preparing the voters list. “I was the one that was really eager to teach the KPU a lesson by ordering an election rerun. But we have no proof,” Mahfud said. However, he said that some of the proven irregularities could still be taken to court as general crimes. He added that he would recommend that competent individuals be chosen as KPU members in the future. KPU member Andi Nurpati said the court ruling meant that there would be no second-round presidential election. “The president gained more than 50 percent [of the vote]. We know that Yudhoyono and Boediono significantly passed the minimum requirement.” She also said that members of the KPU were relieved that allegations of election irregularities were left largely unproven. “All election stages were carried out according to procedure,” she said. Nur Hidayat Sardini, chairman of the Elections Supervisory Board (Bawaslu), said his agency had determined that although many election irregularities had taken place, they were within a tolerable level. “Though several violations occurred during the election, we have to think critically and recognize that they were not massive or systematic as the plaintiffs alleged.” The teams of the two candidates aired disappointment at the verdict but said they would accept it. “The Constitutional Court verdict is final and binding,” said Chairuman Harahap, from Kalla’s team. “In this state of law, we have no other option but to accept the result. We’re ready to win, as we are also ready to lose.” Arteria Dahlan, from Megawati’s team, said that the team had yet to decide whether it was going to take further legal action. “We respect the court ruling, but it is ambiguous,” he said.
