March 12, 2024
JAKARTA – Civil society organizations are urging political parties to exercise their right to an inquiry by launching a House of Representatives probe into allegations of election fraud, which have continued to gain traction less than two weeks before the General Elections Commission (KPU) is due to announce the official winners.
An alliance of some 50 activists, members of civil groups and experts, sent on Saturday a letter to five political parties that backed the rivals of presumptive presidential winner Prabowo Subianto, calling on them to launch the House inquiry into what they described as “strong indications” of fraud surrounding last month’s presidential election.
While the letter did not detail the allegations of fraud, some experts and activists have since the campaign season accused President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s administration of using state resources to benefit Prabowo and his running mate, Jokowi’s eldest son Gibran Rakabuming Raka.
Following the Feb. 14 vote and throughout the vote-tabulation process, posters on social media and Prabowo’s rival camps have also claimed to have found evidence of voter intimidation and inflated tabulation figures for the Gerindra Party chairman, ultimately leading to a call from presidential candidate Ganjar Pranowo for a House inquiry.
The group said in its letter that suspicions of fraud could erode Indonesia’s democracy and undermine public faith in the incoming government and House members, if they were to be left unchecked.
“Political parties […] should urge the House of Representatives to use its inquiry rights to investigate the facts behind the widespread allegations of election fraud. [This effort] is intended to safeguard the results of the 2024 elections and as a response to public concern,” the group said.
Ganjar’s Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), along with the pro-Anies Baswedan Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the National Awakening Party (PKB), called for an inquiry during a plenary session last week.
Although no party has yet to table a formal motion, Ganjar repeated the PDI-P’s commitment to the inquiry on Saturday, saying that the party was currently preparing its arguments and consolidating support within its ranks.
“It’s a pretty long process, which I don’t think will go smoothly, since some parties will oppose [the inquiry proposal],” Ganjar said in a pre-recorded speech played during an event on Saturday. “It’s political interplay, and we are preparing for every [possibility].”
Read also: House inquiry plan on shaky ground
Anies, who also attended Saturday’s event virtually, did not mention a House inquiry, but stressed that the alleged “unfair practices” conducted on a massive scale during last month’s election “must be corrected”.
KPU in question
The activists’ call for a House inquiry comes amid questions being raised over the General KPU’s overall vote-tabulation process, as irregularities and glitches on tabulation platform Sirekap have cast doubts on the poll body’s ability to reliably determine the election results.
Irregularities in Sirekap data have caused controversy even though the KPU has made it clear that the official winners will still be based on the KPU’s manual, tiered tabulation, rather than the vote count displayed on Sirekap.
Read also: KPU credibility crumbles amid vote count fiasco
Irregularities include mismatched results between the vote counts shown on the platform and those on the manual C1 vote tally reports photographed or scanned by poll administrators.
The KPU last week decided to stop displaying the preliminary tally on Sirekap but this has been taken by election activists and some political parties as evidence that the KPU has walked back on its commitment to uphold transparency.
The KPU previously found itself in hot water after irregularities in the voter list in Kuala Lumpur, allegedly committed by seven officials from the city’s election committee (PPLN), prompted a revote on Sunday.
KPU commissioner Idham Holik was quoted by Tribunnews.com as saying on Monday that the revote went smoothly, although a “lack of enthusiasm” led to a drop in turnout.
But labor rights advocacy group Migrant Care questioned the KPU’s voter list in the revote, suggesting that thousands of diaspora voters might not have been able to recast their vote, Tempo.co reported.
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The Kuala Lumpur PPLN is expected to finish its vote tabulation by Wednesday, and its results will be added to the KPU’s tiered-tabulation process, which is now being assessed at the provincial level.
Low coverage
While the KPU is expected to announce its final vote count on March 20 at the latest, independent election monitoring platform KawalPemilu has completed its own vote count on Saturday, with Prabowo winning 58 percent of the vote.
But KawalPemilu also said that the 2024 presidential election had the worst coverage of published C1 forms, with KawalPemilu only managing to access the forms from 82 percent of the country’s 820,000 polling stations.
KawalPemilu said that it did not find any indication of “structured, systematic and massive” fraud engaged in for the benefit of a specific candidate pair.