Election finally ends for Prabowo

JAKARTA. The drama surrounding the presidential election finally concluded on Thursday with the bang of Constitutional Court presiding justice Hamdan Zoelva’s gavel: The court rejected all the demands made by Prabowo Subianto and Hatta Rajasa in their lawsuit, which alleged widespread fraud during the July 9 election

“The Constitutional Court rejects all of the plaintiff’s requests relating to this lawsuit,” Zoelva, also the court's president, announced after the panel of justices had spent almost eight hours reading out their ruling.

The court ruled that the pair’s case did not provide sufficient proof or legal levy and their legal team's presentation of the case was disorganized. Hamdan added that the decision was final and that the verdict had been unanimously signed by all nine justices on the panel.

In its lawsuit, the Prabowo-Hatta ticket claimed that the 2014 presidential election was not conducted in a legal manner due to alleged vote-tampering by rival ticket Joko “Jokowi” Widodo–Jusuf Kalla, as well as allegations of abuse of authority by the General Elections Commission (KPU).

The plaintiff’s legal team amended its lawsuit and demands several times during the course of the hearing, which had begun on July 25. The case suggested that there were inconsistencies within the final voter list (DPT) relating to how it was presented on July 22 by the KPU.

Furthermore, the Prabowo-Hatta lawyers also accused the KPU of violating the Presidential Election Law, accusing the commission of manipulating votes.

Prabowo and Hatta requested the court rule the election invalid and the announcement by the KPU proclaiming Jokowi-Kalla the winner of the election as void. Prabowo asserted that the "real" election results would have recorded 67.13 million votes for his ticket against 66.43 million votes for Jokowi-Kalla.

During the course of the hearing, Prabowo-Hatta’s legal team attempted to bring in witnesses to strengthen their seemingly weak case in order to prove their allegations of "massive and systematic" electoral fraud on election day. The court justices also examined the additional voter lists (DPKTb), which were deemed unconstitutional by the plaintiffs, who also accused the KPU of duplicating voters and failing to hold legitimate polls in Papua. (dyl)