April 19, 2019
The former military man claims poll win.
Presidential contender Prabowo Subianto declared victory again over the incumbent Joko “Jokowi” Widodo on Thursday evening — but this time, he was not alone.
He proclaimed victory alongside his running mate Sandiaga Uno, Democratic Party secretary general Hinca Pandjaitan and National Mandate Party (PAN) patron Amien Rais, who had all been absent during Prabowo’s first declaration on Wednesday evening.
“I declare victory along with Sandiaga Uno as president and vice president for the 2019-2024 period based on [our lead of] 64 percent of the vote in the real count that we have recapitulated,” Prabowo said.
His supporters who packed the team’s basecamp on Jl. Kertanegara in South Jakarta cheered loudly and shouted his name. Prabowo also asked his supporters to shout Allahu Akbar (God is Great) with him.
“We have declared this victory earlier than [the final results] because we have evidence of various wrongdoings in numerous villages, subdistricts and districts across Indonesia.”
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Twelve survey institutions have released their well-publicized quick count results and all consistently show that Jokowi and his running mate Ma’ruf Amin are leading with between 54 and 55 percent, while Prabowo and Sandiaga are trailing behind with between 44 and 45 percent.
Similar to the previous declaration, he also urged his supporters to avoid “overreacting” to his declarations, as he said the claimed victory was a chance for each side to strengthen the bonds between them.
Sandiaga, Hinca and Amien were standing close to him but they did not make a speech.
At around the same time, Jokowi also held a speech on Thursday evening, saying that 13 state leaders had congratulated “all Indonesians, as well as Jokowi and Ma’ruf” for the success of the general election.
While the incumbent has yet to explicitly rebuke his rival’s repeated victory declaration, Jokowi told reporters that the congratulations for Ma’ruf and him were “special”.
Prabowo first claimed victory on Wednesday at his base camp in Jakarta upon receiving information that he had won the race with 62 percent of the vote based on an internal “real count” of over 320,000 polling stations across Indonesia.
Researcher Burhanuddin Muhtadi from Indikator Politik Indonesia said in a discussion panel on TVOne right after Prabowo’s second declaration that collecting data from 320,000 polling stations across the country within a day was impossible.