Race to Head Indonesia's Golkar Party Heats Up

Candidates for the Golkar Party chairmanship are scrambling to secure the support of regional leaders as the competition heats up ahead of the party’s national congress next week. Tommy Suharto, a convicted murdered who is a son of former dictator President Suharto, has reportedly been busy schmoozing regional delegations in Jakarta to share his vision for the party if he were elected chairman. “In one day, two to three delegations come to Tommy in Jakarta,” said Yusyafri Syafei, a close aide and campaign team member for the controversial high-flying businessman. Taking a different tack from the other candidates, who have been visiting the regions to gain support, Yusyafri said that Tommy refused to expose his strategy and only conducted closed-door meetings. Tommy, he said, had inherited a lot of clout from his father, who had dominated Golkar during his New Order regime, and did not need to seek more popularity by visiting the regions. “We’re using a stealth strategy. We don’t need to claim support we already have. The important thing is how the regions will choose Tommy in the party congress,” Yusyafri said, claiming the provincial and district leaders came to Tommy on their own initiative. “There is a soul connection between the district chairmen and Tommy because of his father,” he said. During the party congress, the candidates will need to get the support of the 33 provincial branch chairmen, 470 district branch chairmen and 10 Golkar organizational wings. Another young candidate, Yuddy Chrisnandi, visited West Kalimantan, Bali and West Nusa Tenggara over the weekend to meet with branch leaders. He said he stood out in the field of candidates because he took the initiative to contact the branches and was invited to meet with them. Separately, Surya Paloh visited Semarang in Central Java, Padang in West Sumatra and Palembang in South Sumatra over the weekend to promote his candidacy. Paloh officially received the support of 19 district branch chairmen in Padang, who declared their support for him on Sunday. Branch chairmen in Papua, South Sulawesi, Java and West Sumatra also announced their support for him during his visit to each of their provinces. Paloh, a media mogul, had previously declared that if he were elected party chairman, he would ensure the party’s independence and not join the next cabinet. In Makassar, South Sulawesi, Paloh met with the current Golkar chairman, Vice President Jusuf Kalla, although Kalla denied that the meeting meant he was offering support. Kalla said he wanted to be neutral and did not back any candidate. Paloh praised Kalla’s stance. “Kalla is a party chairman who can maintain party unity,” he said.

Court Throws Out Indonesian Election Challenge

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.

Court Asks For Concrete Evidence in Indonesian Election Case

The Constitutional Court on Wednesday told the legal teams of presidential candidates Megawati Sukarnoputri and Jusuf Kalla to present evidence backing up their complaints about the July 8 election results. “All those related to these cases should be able to provide proof,” said Mahfud MD, chief of the court. On the first day of hearings on Tuesday, Kalla’s and Megawati’s teams presented the court with different versions of what they claimed were the true election results. While both teams claimed that incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono failed to garner 50 percent of the national vote, the two candidates also contended that they each obtained the second-highest number of votes. If it is proven that Yudhoyono did, in fact, fail to acquire more than half the vote, a second round of elections would be held, pitting him against the second-place candidate. Mahfud also told the plaintiffs to prove their allegations that there were millions of fictitious voters, which may have influenced the election results. Kalla’s team said it had found 25 million ghost voters while Megawati’s team claimed 28 million. “You should be able to prove that these ghost voters only voted for one candidate and didn’t distribute their vote to all candidates,” he said. Mahfud also asked Kalla’s team to prove that a reduction in the number of polling stations affected the number of votes acquired by their client. “There should be proof that the removal of 69,000 polling stations reduced the votes by 34.5 million,” he said. In its lawsuit, Kalla’s team claimed that the decision of the General Elections Commission (KPU) to cut the number of polling stations may have reduced the voter turnout. The team said that assuming 70 percent of these uncast votes would have gone to Kalla, their candidate would have obtained 24 million more votes putting him in second place. KPU member Endang Sulastri said the reduction in the number of polling stations had no impact on the number of votes as it was merely a “regrouping” of voters.But Chairuman Harahap, a lawyer for Kalla’s team, said that many voters had been left unregistered due to the reduction in the number of polling stations. The court also requested the KPU to provide evidence that it conducted the election according to procedure. “It has to be proven in court … how well they informed the public on voter registration or that voters were allowed to use their identity cards if they were not registered,” Mahfud said. Yudi Latif, a political expert from the Reform Institute, told the court in his expert testimony that a revote was necessary as the election had not been conducted properly. “Because of the defective procedure regarding the voters list, the election was legally flawed,” he said. Arteria Dahlan, a lawyer for Megawati’s team, said they would provide all the necessary evidence. The final hearing of the court in the matter is scheduled for Friday and a ruling is expected early next week.

Indonesian Presidential Election Losers Ready Their Lawsuits

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