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KPU urges Constitutional Court to throw out Prabowo's election challenge
Jakarta Globe - August 9, 2014
As the Constitutional Court (MK) held the second hearing of the case on Friday, Ali Nurdin, a lawyer representing the General Election Commission (KPU), said the Prabowo team failed to explain how the alleged "structured, systematic and massive" cheating had taken place – specifically how KPU officials allegedly committed the crime and how it benefited winning rivals presidential candidate Joko Widodo and his running mate Jusuf Kalla.
"The plaintiff didn't explain exactly who has been involved and how the violations took place. [The allegations] are vague and unclear," Ali said, before the panel of nine justices at the court. "The lawsuit doesn't meet the requirements. The court should reject it."
Ali also protested the addition of new materials by the legal team of Prabowo and his running mate Hatta Rajasa, after the court ordered them during the first hearing on Wednesday to fix their lawsuit – citing "unconvincing, vague" arguments and irrelevant evidence, aside from spelling errors.
Ali said the new materials, rather than supporting previous claims, expanded the allegations instead. "The improvements should be made in line with the previous claims. This is important so that both plaintiff and defendant will have the same allocation of time [to compose their arguments]," Ali said.
Another lawyer with the KPU, Adnan Buyung Nasution, was concerned that the new materials would reduce the time that the KPU had to gather evidence to counter the plaintiff's accusations.
"We request a time [limitation] for adding new materials," Adnan said, adding that the MK would do injustice if they kept proceeding with the lawsuit despite insufficient evidence.
The MK, meanwhile, allows the KPU to open sealed boxes storing the ballots to gather evidence to defend themselves, after the Prabowo-Hatta team's protest on the matter, alleging KPU officials of attempting to modify the boxes' contents.
"We're asking the MK to declare [the ballot box opening] illegal, and documents [retrieved from the boxes] as invalid evidence," a lawyer for Prabowo-Hatta, Didik Supriyanto, said at the beginning of Friday's hearing.
On Friday afternoon, though, chief justice Hamdan Zoelva ruled, "We give permission to the defendant to take documents out of sealed ballot boxes so that they may use those as evidence in the MK trial, under the conditions that – among others – they must invite representatives from both tickets, as well as from election supervisory committees, to witness the ballot box opening."
The Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) defended the KPU's move to open the boxes. "Bawaslu can honestly understand why the KPU needs to open the boxes, because those contain documents that they can use as evidence, as long as witnesses appear during the opening to ensure authenticity of documents – meaning no adding or reducing of anything," Bawaslu commissioner Nasrullah said at the hearing. "And along with Bawaslu's watch of the process, our friends at the KPU haven't done anything to add or reduce the figures."
'Imaginary'
Friday's hearing also featured 24 witnesses from the Prabowo camp – the court does not allow the appearance of all 2,000 witnesses which the camp claimed to be standing by in Jakarta to support Prabowo at anytime – to testify.
The 24 witnesses came from Jakarta, Central Java and East Java – among several provinces where the Prabowo team has demanded revoting.
Taufik Basari, a legal representative for the Joko-Kalla camp, said, though, that many of the witnesses' testimonies were without merit because they were what he referred to as "de auditu testimonium".
"'De auditu' means they explain reports or statements from other people, instead of witnessing and experiencing the events themselves," Taufik told reporters on the sidelines of the hearing. He said he hoped that that would convince the court to reject Prabowo's legal challenge.
One of the witnesses irked chief justice Hamdan during the hearing after delivering such a testimony. "The media once reported the Surabaya mayor as saying that [Joko-Kalla] would win, and it's true they later won," Alamin, a resident of East Java, said. "That can't be used as evidence. The media can be wrong, or correct," Hamdan told the witness. "That's enough, don't quote the media."
But Alamin insists on his evidence. "Here, I have the proof, Mr. Justice, I have a clipping of the media reports." "When I said enough, it's enough. Or I'll kick you out [of the courtroom]," Hamdan warned him, which rendered the witness, who returned to his seat, silent.
An attorney for the Joko-Kalla team, Sira Prayuna, called the Prabowo team's massive cheating allegations "imaginary." Prabowo's team has alleged up to 24 million "problematic" votes – composed of 22 million across the nation plus nearly 2 million in Papua and West Papua – as a result of the so-called structured and systematic cheating.
"Who exactly are the perpetrators of the 'structured, systematic and massive' cheating, and how have they done that?" Sira asked the court. "And where did the plaintiff get that 22 million figure from? That's just a product of their imagination."
At the same time, the Prabowo-Hatta team says that according to their own version of the tally, the election result should be 50.25 percent for Prabowo-Hatta and 49.75 percent for Joko-Kalla.
That means a vote gap of merely 700,000 votes, far below the 8.4 million vote gap stated by the KPU – let alone the allegedly problematic 24 million votes.
'No massive fraud'
Outside the court, Bawaslu member Nelson Simanjuntak said its board found no indications of massive fraud in the July 9 presidential election during its scrutiny of the process. The allegations in the lawsuit filed by Prabowo-Hatta to the court, according to Nelson, had not been previously submitted to Bawaslu.
"Bawaslu hasn't found any of those so-called systematic, structured, and massive fraud in the presidential election. To date, Bawaslu has never received any reports concerning the allegations," Nelson said.
He added that if there were any irregularities, Bawaslu and its regional branches – called Panwaslu – would correct the process immediately. "We would have given sanctions if there was a violation. We do that for the sake of a democratic presidential election," he said.
Nelson added that, in fact, most regional leaders supported Prabowo-Hatta. "We've found a few regional leaders trying to influence voters. It happened in Central Java and Maluku. It wasn't much, but Bawaslu has acted on those," he said.
Nelson further added Bawaslu had overseen the step-by-step vote counting and recapitulation process by the KPU, and found no indications of the massive fraud allegations. The election has been organized democratically, he added.
Separately, the Election Organizers Ethics Council (DKPP) kicked off its own trial on Friday concerning the same case, also filed by Prabowo-Hatta against the KPU and Bawaslu. The first hearing of the case heard introductory statements by representatives of each party involved, and the second is scheduled for Monday.
DKPP chief Jimly Ashiddiqie told the plaintiff to present the case well. "We have no need to summon the presidential candidate [Prabowo]. But his team must work neatly on the lawsuit. Their allegations should be made clear, and they must be able to show the evidence," Jimly, a former chief justice of the Constitutional Court, said at the DKPP hearing.
He told the Prabowo-Hatta camp not to amass their crowd outside the council's office in Jakarta. "That isn't healthy. That wouldn't draw the judges' sympathy," Jimly said. "There is no need to stage protests. Those can be counterproductive. The judges would think it an attempt to intervene."
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