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Prabowo loses as court rules in favor of KPU
Jakarta Post - August 22, 2014
As predicted by legal experts, the court rejected the demands made by the Prabowo-Hatta Rajasa legal team after it failed to prove that "structured, systemic and massive violations had taken place during and after the July 9 election.
"[We have] ruled against all the demands," Chief Justice Hamdan Zoelva said, reading the conclusion of the 3,000-page verdict document.
The bench concluded that the claims made by the Prabowo-Hatta camp, including on the surplus 1.5 million votes for Jokowi as opposed to their own alleged loss of 1.2 million votes in 155,000 polling stations, along with the claim that the KPU's potential voter list (DP4) and the additional special voters lists (DPKTb) had been used to mobilize votes for Jokowi, had no legal basis.
During the six-hour reading of the ruling, the nine justices said they found no evidence of the alleged violations.
The court in fact criticized the Prabowo-Hatta camp for not raising any objections when the votes were being counted at all levels, a lapse the bench considered as having undermined the lawyers' arguments. "There is no evidence that can be used to convince the panel that there were surplus and lost votes," Justice Muhammad Alim said.
In rejecting the claim made by the Prabowo-Hatta camp questioning the legality and constitutionality of the election process, due to unusually high numbers on the DPKTb, the court cited its own decision in 2009 that allowed voters to use their identification cards to cast their ballots. "The lists should be seen as a mechanism to protect the people's right to vote," justice Ahmad Fadlil Sumadi said.
The DPKTb, the list of eligible voters not registered in the final voters list (DPT), but who were allowed to cast votes by using their identification cards, had caused controversy with the Prabowo camp who accused the KPU of using the DPKTb as a means of mobilizing voters without legal basis. Again, the court found no evidence that the KPU collaborated with the Jokowi camp to mobilize voters using the DPKTb.
Expert witnesses presented both by the KPU and the Jokowi camp built a strong case for the use of the DPKTb. Former Constitutional Court justice Harjono, who testified for the KPU, and legal expert Saldi Isra, an expert witness for the Jokowi camp, argued that the 2009 court decision alone was enough to allow the use of the DPKTb.
Harjono also insisted there was no indication of systemic and massive fraud in the election. Other than using strong constitutional grounds, the panel of justices also applied simple logic in rejecting the plaintiffs' arguments.
Justice Ahmad Fadlil argued that the petitioners had acknowledged the legality of the DPKTb when they provided the court with a turnout figure of 133,574,277 voters, similar to the KPU's vote tally. "The number is actually similar to that of the KPU. If we make a connection between the two, their complaint becomes null and void," Ahmad said.
Prabowo-Hatta claimed to have won the presidential election with 67,139,153 votes (50.25 percent) against 66,435,124 (49.74 percent) for Jokowi-Kalla, which differed from the KPU final tally of 70,997,833 votes for Jokowi and 62,576,444 votes for Prabowo.
The panel of justices also rejected the plaintiffs' demands for a reballot in more than 5,000 polling stations in Jakarta, 14 regencies in Papua, 287 polling stations in South Nias regency in North Sumatra, five regencies in East Java and in all polling stations across West Papua and Central Java. The bench said there were no violations in those areas that warranted a reballot.
Maqdir Ismail, one of Prabowo's legal team members, said they accepted the defeat. "What can we do other than accept it?" he said.
KPU chairman Husni Kamil Manik praised the ruling, saying that it validated the KPU's impartiality during the election process. "The ruling is final and binding, therefore the KPU's decision on the president-elect remains valid," he added. "It confirms the KPU's decision."
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/08/22/prabowo-loses-court-rules-favor-kpu.html.
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