April 23, 2024
JAKARTA – The Constitutional Court on Monday, in a five-to-three decision, upheld Defense Minister Prabowo’s landslide election victory, rejecting claims by one of his two rivals that February’s election was marred by fraud.
In its decision, the court rejected all claims by losing candidate Anies Baswedan that Prabowo’s win depended on the large-scale fraud and partisanship of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, whose son Gibran Rakabuming Raka was Prabowo’s running mate.
The justices said petitioner failed to prove their claims of Jokowi politicising the government’s social aid during the campaign season to sway voters in favor of Prabowo-Gibran, or nepotism in Gibran’s candidacy.
“We found no convincing evidence that the distribution of social aid had increased [their] vote,” Justice Daniel Yusmic Foekh said.
Anies’ legal team sought a revote either with Prabowo but with his running mate Gibran Rakabuming Raka excluded, or without the pair entirely. They built their arguments around the candidacy of Gibran and allegations that Gibran’s father President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo had used state resources to effect a favorable outcome for the Prabowo-Gibran pair, as part of his attempts to maintain his grip on power after leaving office later this year.
The other candidate Ganjar Pranowo also disputed the election results. The court will read out its decision later on Monday.
During the last hearing on April 5, the court summoned four of Jokowi’s ministers responsible for the government’s social aid program to give their depositions about the aid distribution. All four ministers denied allegations that Jokowi had used government aid for electoral purposes.
Monday’s ruling was made without Gibran’s uncle Anwar Usman on the bench. He is barred from all election disputes following an ethics violation when issuing the controversial ruling in October last year that effectively enabled his nephew Gibran to run for vice president. Anwar was also demoted from the chief justice position.
Three justices, namely Saldi Isra, Arief Hidayat and Enny Nurbaningsih, filed dissenting opinions. Saldi and Arief were among the justices who were also opposed to altering the candidate-eligibility requirement in October.
Legal briefs from nearly 50 amici curiae, or people who are not party to the dispute, had been filed with the court by Friday either to support or reject the two cases. This included one written by Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri, who warned the justices to deliver “fair” decisions and whose candidate was Ganjar.
Expectations had been high among pro-democracy circles, scholars and activists that the court would deliver “progressive rulings” in the face of mounting pressure to restore its embattled credibility following Anwar’s ethics breach.
But not everyone had been convinced that the court would annul Prabowo’s victory given that the court has never ruled in favor of a plaintiff challenging a presidential election result, and in a number of previous cases, it found that the plaintiffs failed to prove that the elections were systematically rigged on a large scale.
Both petitioners, the Prabowo camp and the General Elections Commission (KPU), which was the defendant in the dispute, had previously said they would accept whatever the court decided on Monday.