Indonesia polls: Prabowo claims win although quick count favours Jokowi

JAKARTA - Indonesia's former special forces general Prabowo Subianto declared victory in the presidential election shortly after his rival Joko Widodo made the same claim, with a Prabowo aide saying they were ready to argue their case at the election commission.

“Based on the information from the quick count - from the pollsters we think are accurate - and from all information that has come in from the field, (it) shows that we, Prabowo-Hatta, has got the support and mandate from Indonesian people,’’ Prabowo said in a 4-minute statement on Wednesday, flanked by his coalition partners.

“Thank you for the faith you put in us, in the red-white coalition of Prabowo-Hatta," he said, referring to his running mate Hatta Rajasa.

His comments came after the Jakarta governor, popularly known as Jokowi, claimed victory based on quick counts of votes by several pollsters. The quick counts gave him a clear five percentage point-lead over Prabowo.

Official results will be announced only on July 21 or 22.

"We are ready to argue our case at the Election Commission (KPU)," said Prabowo's national campaign chief, Dr Mahfud MD.

Campaign spokesman and senior Golkar politician Tantowi Yahya told reporters that "quick count results are not official and shouldn't be used to seize victory", adding that they would wait for KPU to complete the count on June 22.

When asked about Prabowo's claim of victory, Jokowi's campaign spokesman Anies Baswedan said: "What is their basis? All the credible pollsters said Jokowi led by about 5 per cent."

Up to 190 million Indonesians were registered to vote in Wednesday's elections. The battle has been a bruising one, pitting Jokowi, who rose to prominence on his record of good governance, consultation and transparency, against Prabowo, a former general whose promise of firm, decisive leadership held enough appeal to whittle down his rival's once commanding lead to a hair's breadth.

The last survey released by pollster Saiful Mujani on Tuesday showed a wafer-thin 2.7 percentage points between the two rivals.

[email protected]

---------------------------------------------

also : http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-10/i ... nt/5586250

Uh oh! Riots in the streets for sure if Probono officially wins!

Was wondering what's happening - results should be announced in the next 2 days. Looks like anything is possible.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/mon ... be-stolen/

Jokowi Confirmed Indonesia’s Next President, But Still No Surrender From Desperate Prabowo

Jakarta. The Indonesian elections commission on Tuesday night officially proclaimed Joko Widodo the winner of the most bitterly fought and closest-run presidential election in the country’s history.

The commission, known as the KPU, announced that Joko had won 53.15 percent of the vote against Prabowo Subianto’s 46.85 percent in the July 9 election. Calculations by the Jakarta Globe released on Sunday said Joko had won 53.27 of the vote against 46.73 percent for Prabowo.

Hours before the announcement, however, losing candidate Prabowo held an extraordinary press conference in which he said he was withdrawing from the vote-counting process.

“We are going to use our constitutional rights and we are rejecting this presidential election, which is legally flawed,” Prabowo said in a televised speech from Rumah Polonia, his campaign base in East Jakarta.

The day turned increasingly farcical when Prabowo’s campaign manager, former Constitutional Court chief justice Mahfud M.D., resigned from the team, while running mate Hatta Rajasa stayed indoors and cancelled his own press conference at 4 p.m. Other members of Prabowo’s camp, however, attempted to row back from Prabowo’s earlier statement that he was “withdrawing,” and insisted that their presidential candidate would still take complaints of electoral fraud and malpractice to the Constitutional Court — the country’s final court of appeal on such matters.

Prabowo cited 5,000 polling stations in Jakarta where, he claimed, irregularities had taken place, and pointed to districts in Papua and East Java where no voting had taken place at all.

“We instruct all our witnesses in the KPU not to continue the tally process,” Prabowo said.

Prabowo’s witnesses at the KPU) headquarters in Central Jakarta then staged a walkout.

Legal quagmire

As Joko’s camp declared victory and urged Indonesians to respect the integrity of the count, and Prabowo’s longtime nemesis Wiranto branded his former military colleague “sad” and “bitter,” constitutional law experts were left scrambling through the statutes for a black-and-white answer to an unprecedented electoral gray area — was there a legal mechanism for Prabowo to formally withdraw from the election?

A letter seen by the Globe late on Tuesday night addressed to the KPU says the Prabowo campaign would “menarik diri” — which means “withdraw” or “pull out” — from the counting process. There was no mention in the letter of withdrawing the candidacy.

“The election process will keep on running and no one can stop that except a court ruling or the recommendation of the Bawaslu [Elections Supervisory Body],” former KPU chairman Abdul Hafiz Anshary said, as quoted by Indonesian news portal Metrotvnews.com on Tuesday. MetroTV is owned by Surya Paloh — a senior member of Joko Widodo’s coalition.

Refly Harun, a constitutional law expert, told the Globe that Prabowo’s ambiguous withdrawal would not have any bearing on the legitimacy of the official announcement.

“There is no problem — whatever the KPU announces will be legally valid,” Refly said.

The question of whether Prabowo had officially withdrawn from the presidential election — or whether there was a legal mechanism through which he could withdraw — was more complicated and could not be confirmed either way at the time of writing.

“He cannot withdraw,” said Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, the acting governor of Jakarta and a member of Prabowo’s Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra). “It has been regulated by the KPU that [a candidate] can’t withdraw.”

Some legal experts expressed concern that Prabowo’s move would throw Indonesia into an unnecessary and potentially dangerous constitutional crisis.

“Our law gives us 30 days [after the election] to announce the result, which means we still have some 10 days left [to make the announcement],” said Irman Putra Sidin, a noted constitutional law expert from Hassanudin University in Makassar, South Sulawesi. “If the KPU insists on announcing it today there will be a serious constitutional problem.

“So please, for the KPU: don’t rush into this — this is going to give rise to serious consequences,” Irman said.

Others said that there was no legitimate basis in Prabowo’s accusations, given that the disputed Jakarta polling station results and the allegations of malpractice in East Java and Papua could not possibly give Prabowo the swing in votes he would need to leapfrog Joko — more than four million votes.

“To see it from the scientific and rational view, with the gap of eight million votes — or six percentage points — even if the case were taken to the Constitutional Court, and even if the court just blindly decided to give [Prabowo] the votes of all unregistered voters, he would not be able to pass the total votes gained by Joko Widodo and Jusuf Kalla,” Haryadi, a political expert from Surabaya’s Airlangga University, told the Globe.

Others said the KPU should not be prevented from announcing the official result on Tuesday night.

“If they stop, then the losing party in future elections could just withdraw like [Prabowo] did,” said Saldi Isra at Andalas University in Padang, West Sumatra. “That should not be allowed to happen.”

Security maintained

The area outside the KPU headquarters in Menteng, Central Jakarta, was quiet at 10 a.m. but within an hour, the media had begun to arrive in earnest. TV crews trickled in while reporters approached the building, filing past hundreds of police and military personnel drafted in to secure the announcement.

The situation in Central Jakarta remained quiet throughout the day, with police officers decked in riot gear taking photographs in front of armored cars and sipping iced tea. A small Gaza solidarity rally by a trade union was allowed to carry on without incident.

By Tuesday evening, as the country waited for election officials to make the official announcement, senior members of the current government and security services had met in order to prevent any tension spilling over into outright unrest.

Djoko Suyanto, the coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs, asked Indonesians to remain calm and not to be provoked by Prabowo’s decision to reject the election result.

Speaking at a press conference in his office on Tuesday — flanked by Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi, as well as top brass from the military and police — Djoko said the government would guarantee public order.

He also added people should ignore calls to violate the law because it would “destroy and taint the process of democracy.”

Djoko, along with Gamawan, Indonesian Military (TNI) commander Gen. Moeldoko, National Police Chief Gen. Sutarman and chief of the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) Marciano Norman, met after Prawbowo announced his rejections of any result to be announced by the KPU.

The police and military will work hand-in-hand to maintain security and public order, Djoko said, and will not hesitate to take strict action against anyone breaking the law.

Rumors circulated late on Tuesday night that Prabowo would be holding another press conference Wednesday morning, and that he would make it clear that he was not “withdrawing” from the race.

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/jok ... e-prabowo/

Milord wrote:
Hours before the announcement, however, losing candidate Prabowo held an extraordinary press conference in which he said he was withdrawing from the vote-counting process.

This planet is full of sore losers.



Good update! ! ! I have a bunch of Indonesian friends on Facebook I need to congratulate! ! They have been waiting for this outcome for a while now!

10 years after, boom !
Prabowo and Jokowi partner up for next mandate ^^