APSN | Prabowo steps up attack on campaigners, pollsters

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Prabowo steps up attack on campaigners, pollsters

Jakarta Post - July 15, 2014

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Yuliasri Perdani, Jakarta – The campaign team of Gerindra Party's presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto filed on Monday a police report against Akbar Faisal, a campaign team member of presidential frontrunner Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, and leaders of two Jakarta-based pollsters for claiming that Jokowi had won the July 9 presidential election.

Prabowo's campaign secretary, Fadli Zon, accused Akbar of prematurely declaring Jokowi the country's next president after the candidate delivered a victory speech at the Proclamation Monument in Central Jakarta hours after balloting finished. Akbar, a Nasdem Party politician, worked as the first secretary of Jokowi's campaign team.

"At the monument, Akbar said that [Jokowi was] the president of the Republic of Indonesia without elaborating that the claim was based on several quick-count results. His statement could create security problems," Fadli told reporters.

According to Fadli, he handed the police video footage showing Akbar announce five times that Jokowi was the president. "Declaring someone president, while in fact our president is still SBY [Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono] could be considered treason," he added.

In his police report, Fadli also complained against Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) founder, Denny JA, and Indikator Politik Indonesia executive director, Burhanuddin Muhtadi, for publishing their quick-count results favoring Jokowi.

"The pollsters could be seen as the basis for [Akbar's] remarks. Also, Burhanuddin once said that the General Elections Commission (KPU) was wrong if its vote tabulation differed from his quick-count result," he said.

Prabowo's camp reported only the LSI and Indikator Politik despite the fact that at least five other reputable pollsters have confirmed Jokowi's victory in the election.

The pollsters, including CSIS-Cyrus Network and Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC), announced their quick-count results showing Jokowi leading with more than 52 percent of the vote against Prabowo's 48 percent.

Fadli denied assumptions that pressing charges against Jokowi's campaigner and the pollsters was a desperate measure by his campaign team to convince people of Prabowo's claim of victory.

"It doesn't mean that we are running out of options. We only filed a police report, unlike those who attacked the offices of [TV] news station tvOne. We do things in a civilized way, by seeking justice through legal channels," he said.

Fadli was referring to supporters of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) who staged rallies and vandalized the tvOne office building in Yogyakarta on July 3, over one of its reports linking the party to communism.

TvOne is controlled by Aburizal Bakrie, whose Golkar Party backs Prabowo. Moments after the election, tvOne faced strong criticism for airing only the quick-count results of pollsters claiming victory for Prabowo.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/07/15/prabowo-steps-attack-campaigners-pollsters.html.