Prabowo’s lawyer: Our evidence is too strong to reject

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Amid repeated statements that they will respect the decision of the Constitutional Court, the lawyer leading Prabowo Subianto and Hatta Rajasa’s lawsuit challenging the results of Indonesia’s presidential election says only a deviation from the law will lead to a ruling against them.

“We are confident the Constitutional Court will decide in our favor. Our evidence is too strong to reject,” said Mahendradatta in a statement on Tuesday, August 19, two days before the Constitutional Court is set to announce whether indeed the July 9 polls were characterized by “massive, systemic and structural fraud.”

In particular, Mahendradatta pointed to a 2009 decision by the court on a petition by lawyers Refly Harun and Maheswara Prabandono that led to allowing Indonesians not in the voter’s list to exercise their right to suffrage by using their passports or identity cards, known as KTP.

“According to Constitutional Court verdict No. 102/PUU-VII/2009, unregistered voters who cast their ballot using their ID cards can only do so in polling stations that match the address their ID cards,” he said.

Prabowo’s camp claimed irregularities in the way the General Election Commission (KPU) implementated this special voters list, known as DPKTb. They said people were allowed to vote without presenting all the requirements or in polling stations that did not match their address. Some were even able to vote twice.

As evidence of fraud, they said, the amount of votes cast using the DPKTb – about 2.16% of the total – exceeded the 2% additional ballots prepared by KPU for this special list.

“What happened in this election is against the [2009] verdict. Electoral fraud by the KPU occurred massively in all regions,” Mahendradatta said.

Counterarguments

Critics have pointed out that even if the allegations were correct, the 2.16% translates to about 2.9 million votes, less than half the 8.4 million difference in votes won by Joko Widodo and Jusuf Kalla over Prabowo and Hatta, which means it won’t change the election outcome. 

But Prabowo’s camp has claimed that irregularities in the implementation of the DPKTb occurred in more than 55,000 polling stations affecting more than 20 million votes, which should lead the court to order a revote.

In defense of KPU, experts have argued that the commission’s implementation of the DKPTb honored the people’s constitutional right to suffrage and should not be declared unconstitutional. It allowed people who had temporarily migrated to different places to get a permit to vote 10 days before the election.

In his testimony during the final day of the hearings, constitutional law expert Saldi Isra also said that it was illogical to assume fraud based on the fact that the DPKTb votes exceeded the additional ballots allocated for unregistered voters, since there is no regulation prohibiting the use of the unused regular ballots.  

Saldi also pointed out that it was almost impossible to prove that massive, systematic, and structural fraud took place – the conditions that warrant a revote.

He cited as an example that only 0.79% of votes cast in Central Java, where Jokowi and Kalla won, used the DPKTb. Meanwhile, in the province of West Sumatra where Prabowo won, 2.8% of the votes were made using the DPKTb.

“The above example may break the argument that the high turnout for the DPKTb was a form of fraud that led to the winning of one of the pairs of candidates,” he said.

But Mahendradatta has said that his team will adhere to the 2009 verdict.

“Now we are waiting for the Constitutional Court justices to be firm in not violating the laws it has issued. There are only two options, to uphold the law or to allow the violations that took place. We believe only a deviation from the law will lead to a loss for Prabowo’s team,” he said.

Prabowo also repeatedly stated before that he would respect the results announced by the KPU, but proceeded to challenge it at the Constitutional Court. In case they lose on Thursday, Prabowo’s camp has no further legal recourse because the court’s decision is final and binding.

In case the court does order a revote, it was unlikely Prabowo and Hatta would win, according to the Indonesian Survey Circle. A survey it conducted from August 4-6 indicated declining support for Prabowo, with only 30.39% saying they would vote for him, as opposed to the 48.65% that actually did during the election. – with a report from Bayu/Rappler.com

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 See related stories:

• Prabowo’s weak suit
• Prabowo: ‘I can bring tens of thousands of witnesses’
• The betrayal at the heart of Prabowo’s challenge
• Public scrutiny shows problems in Prabowo’s legal challenge
• Prabowo rejects election results, will challenge in court