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Jokowi-Kalla win Indonesia presidential election as KPU completes tally
Jakarta Globe - July 21, 2014
A total of 33 provincial offices of the General Elections Commission (KPU) have completed their individual tallies by early Sunday morning, with Jakarta finishing last – declaring Joko the winner with 53.08 percent of the vote over Prabowo's 46.92 percent.
Indonesia's newest and 34th province, North Kalimantan, had its votes counted by the KPU's East Kalimantan branch. The final individual tallies of the provinces have been made public in various media reports, and the Jakarta Globe has compiled the data to produce its own recap of the national tally – with the KPU only scheduled to finish and announce its final national tally by Tuesday night.
On Sunday, the KPU headquarters in Jakarta only began recapitulating data from 12 provinces.
The Jakarta Globe's national recap of the 33 provincial tallies lands Joko – who is also known as Jokowi – and his running mate Jusuf Kalla the winners of the July 9 presidential election, collecting a total of 70.67 million votes (53.17 percent) compared with Prabowo's 62.25 million votes (46.83 percent). There are a total of 132.92 million valid votes – representing 70.6 percent of Indonesia's total eligible voters.
Consistent with quick counts
The result recap is consistent with the quick counts by eight pollsters announced immediately after Indonesians cast their votes on July 9 – which had put Joko in the lead with between 51 percent and 53 percent vote over the 47 percent to 49 percent in favor of Prabowo.
Four other pollsters, citing their own quick counts, had declared Prabowo the winner with lower margins.
The recap also showed that Joko and his running mate Jusuf Kalla won in 23 provinces, while Prabowo and Hatta Rajasa led in 10 provinces. Joko-Kalla thus led by 8.4 million votes, or around 6.3 percentage points.
"The three biggest contributors to Jokowi-JK's votes were Central Java, East Java and West Java," Tjahjo Kumolo, the secretary general of Joko's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the head of his campaign team, said in Jakarta on Sunday, citing the party's own recap of the KPU provincial data – similar to that of the Jakarta Globe.
Joko-Kalla won 66.65 percent of the vote in Central Java, which is a traditional PDI-P stronghold, securing nearly 13 million votes.
Although West Java was the third-largest contributor to Joko's votes, he actually suffered a big loss in Indonesia's most populous province, securing 9.5 million votes (40.22 percent) over Prabowo's 14 million (59.78 percent).
Bali (another PDI-P stronghold), Bangka-Belitung, South Sulawesi, West Sulawesi, Papua and West Papua were among other provinces where Joko-Kalla won by a large majority.
Prabowo-Hatta, meanwhile, won in the provinces of West Sumatra, West Nusa Tenggara and Gorontalo. Joko-Kalla dominated the votes in central and eastern Indonesia, while the spoils were shared on around Sumatra.
Overseas, Joko-Kalla also lead with a total of 364,283 votes (53.74 percent) over Prabowo-Hatta with 313,600 votes, or 46.26 percent.
Despite the result, Joko has so far restrained from again declaring a win as he did when several quick counts showed he was the winner on July 9 – as that soon proved problematic, with Prabowo having hastily followed to also declare himself as the winner, citing the four quick counts whose results defied the majority.
Some politicians from the Prabowo-Hatta camp – including National Mandate Party (PAN) founder Amien Rais, his son, Hanafi Rais, and Mahfud M.D., the head of the Prabowo-Hatta campaign team – have conceded defeat and even extended their congratulations.
"My dear friends ... Pak Amien Rais has extended a report from our campaign team; it says we've lost [to Joko] by more than 4 percent. Hope Allah gives us strength to sincerely accept this," says a text message circulating among PAN lawmakers – which has beenconfirmed by Yasin Kara, an assistant to PAN chairman and Prabowo's running mate, Hatta.
"Even if a revote is held, for example in Jakarta, there would be no significant change," Yasin told Indonesian news portal liputan6.com on Saturday.
Hanafi, also a PAN politician, meanwhile, congratulated Joko through a press statement sent to detik.com. "As members of [PAN's] young generation, we congratulate Bapak Joko Widodo and Jusuf Kalla – who will helm the national leadership for the next five years," Hanafi said on Sunday.
Mahfud, meanwhile, said in a Sunday interview with Metro TV, that "as part of the campaign team, I say the election is over. I'm returning the mandate [to Prabowo]."
"As for another political process beyond this, I will no longer take part. A legal settlement will be of no use. I will only guard the political process until the KPU announcement," Mahfud added.
Prabowo himself, though, refused to concede defeat, demanding that the KPU postpone its ongoing tally, citing allegations of "massive and systematic" fraud in a number of provinces – including Jakarta, Central Java, East Java and North Sumatra – which his team has reported to the Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu).
"We're only demanding what's guaranteed by the law [that the KPU first follows up on the fraud allegation reports]," Prabowo told a press conference in Jakarta on Sunday, as quoted by tempo.co. "We consider this [electoral] process flawed."
Alamsyah, a lawyer for the Prabowo-Hatta camp, said last week they would take a legal action against the KPU if it insisted on continuing its tally.
The KPU, however, has refused any postponement of the ongoing count. The election body's chairman, Husni Kamil Manik, said the tally would probably be completed today. "Seeing the development [of the ongoing national recap], we may be able to declare [the winner] on July 21," Husni said on Sunday.
Another KPU commissioner, Hadar Gumay, added that there was not enough ground for a revote – saying Bawaslu only recommended a recount for a number of regions and the KPU had done just that. "We understand [the complaint]. But for us, there is no strong reason to postpone the count," Hadar said.
Muradi, a political analyst from Padjajaran University in Bandung, West Java, criticized Prabowo-Hatta's move, accusing them of "delegitimizing" the KPU if they insisted that the commission postpone the ongoing tally.
Dispute? 'No Use'
The KPU has instead suggested that any dissatisfied party should file a complaint with the Constitutional Court – the only authorized institution to handle election disputes in Indonesia.
Aburizal Bakrie, the chairman of Golkar Party – another member of the Prabowo-Hatta coalition, on Sunday said the camp was indeed planning to dispute an official result of the KPU if it declares Joko-Kalla the winners.
"It is a constitutional right to go to the Constitutional Court. Everyone who fails will surely go to the Constitutional Court," Aburizal said on the sidelines of a closed-door meeting of the coalition in Jakarta on Sunday.
"If Jokowi-JK lose, they will surely dispute the result to the Constitutional Court however much the margin is. If Prabowo-Hatta lose, we will surely dispute it in the Constitutional Court however much the margin is – especially when we allege massive fraud," Aburizal said.
But observers have pointed out that disputing the case in the Constitutional Court will be of no use if the margin is too large. Constitutional law expert Margarito Kamis, for example, said a margin of more than 1 percent was already too large because that was equal to nearly 1.5 million votes.
"If it's more than 1 percent, then it's better not to go to the Constitutional Court," Margarito said. "To the winner, see this as a happy moment. To the loser, don't think this a disaster. Don't cause any mayhem; it will only be detrimental to you."
With the 8.4-million-vote margin between the two tickets, the Prabowo-Hatta camp would need more than 4.5 million votes to turn around the result and make themselves the winner of Indonesia's third direct presidential election.
Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/jokowi-kalla-win-presidential-election-kpu-completes-tally/.
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