Two Candidate Pairs Refer Complaints to Constitutional Court by Fardah

    Jakarta, July 29, 2009 (ANTARA News) - The Megawati-Prabowo and Jusuf Kalla-Wiranto presidential election camps have formally reported numerous irregularities that allegedly happened in the July 8 poll to the Constitutional Court (MK) in what appears to be a move to challenge the legitimacy of the election`s official outcome.
      A lawyers` team representing the Jusuf Kalla-Wiranto (JK-Win) pair reported 55 irregularities to MK on Monday (July 27), and the next day, the Megawati-Prabowo`s advocacy team submitted evidence on over 50 flaws.

       Most of the cases reported to the court were defects in fixed voter`s lists (DPTs) that had occurred almost on a general scale in many regions in the country, a member of the JK-Win lawyers` team, Andi M Asrul, said.
       Andi said his team was sure the MK would justify the complaints because in similar cases that had arisen in the April 9, 2009 legislative elections, the court eventually had ruled the holding of repeat polls in a number of regions.

Indra J Piliang, spokesman of the JK-Win`s campaign team, said by presenting the election-related complaints to the MK, the JK-Win camp was challenging the legitimacy of the presidential election results that awarded the poll`s victory to the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono-Boediono pair.

The Megawati- Prabowo presidential election ticket filed a request with MK to revoke the decision of the General Election Commission (KPU) on the results of the presidential election 2009 ballot count, Gayus Lumbuun, coordinator of the Mega-Prabowo advocacy team, told the press after registering the lawsuit with MK.

The lawsuit concerned various issues, including suspected manipulation of 28 million votes and the dismantling of about 96,000 polling stations (TPS). It also questioned the stopping of electronic ballot counting by KPU and the involvement of several foreign institutions in the ballot counting process.

Those irregularities had resulted in the loss of a chance to hold the presidential election in two rounds, Arteria Dahlan, a member of the Mega-Prabowo team said.

The KPU at a plenary session last Saturday (July 25) reported that the Susilo
Bambang Yudhyoyono (SBY)-Boediono pair had won 73,874,562 or 60.80 percent, the Megawati Soekarnoputri-Prabowo Subianto duo collected 32,548,105 or 26.79 percent, and the Jusuf Kalla-Wiranto ticket bagged 15,081,814 or 12.41 percent of the votes.
The KPU`s plenary session was attended by the SBY-Boediono and JK-Win pairs but not by Megawati and Prabowo who were represented by their national campaign team.

The representatives of both the Mega-Prabowo and Kalla-Wiranto tickets refused to sign the minutes on the results of the ballot count on the occasion.

"We as representatives of the Megawati-Prabowo pair reject the vote count results," Gayus Lumbuun, the legal affairs team coordinator of the Mega-Pro duo said.
Lumbuun said, his team rejected the vote count results because many alleged irregularities had occurred during the 2009 presidential race, including flawed DPTs.

However, the KPU chairman Abdul Hafiz Anshary asserted, although there were rejections of the result of the vote count recapitulation, the announced poll outcome remained legitimate.

"We are preparing a team of advocates," Anshary said recently when explaining the steps his commission was taking to face possible disputes on the election results and lawsuits filed with the MK.

The SBY-Boediono campaign team also believed the results of final counting by the KPU would not change despite the challenges from the two rival candidates.
"We are convinced the result of the KPU count will not change much because we have seen that none of their complaints is significant," campaign member Andi Malarangeng said at the SBY private residence in Cikeas, Bogor, on Saturday (July 25).

Ignored criticisms
The KPU, which organized the country`s direct legislative and presidential elections for the 2009-2014 term, has since the beginning become a target of criticisms for mismanaging the electoral process.

The Megawati-Prabowo camp considered the presidential election as not having run democratically due to the controversy over the number of voters registered in DPTs.
Prabowo said he had reminded the KPU many times and made appeals orally as well as in writing to stop the process until the the problems had been settled.

"However the problems remained unsolved, but the vote counting process continued," he said.

Meanwhile, Mulyana W Kusumah of the Independent General Elections Monitoring Committee (KIPP) said recently that based on a KIPP survey, the different data in DPTs which were questioned by two presidential candidate pairs who lost the election, were caused by chaotic conditions in the KPU`s adminstrative system.

He said the problems were not caused by systematic violations by the presidential and vice presidential candidate pair which won the presidential race, but the blame should be put on KPU.

People`s Consultative Assembly (MPR) Chairman Hidayat Nurwahid said it would be better for KPU members to resign after the presidential election or after the oath-taking of the president-elect.

"They should resign as an accountability for their bad performance. After all, the KPU will no longer have anything to do after the president-elect has been installed," Nurwahid said after casting his ballot in Jakarta on July 8.

The MPR chairman said the people would appreciate it if the KPU members resigned because they had failed to perform maximally. KPU members had better resign because they had proven unable to organize a respectable election, he said.

He said the KPU`s dismal performance should also serve as a lesson for the KPU in carrying out future tasks, particularly with regard to voters` electoral rolls so that it would be able to work maximally and transparently.

The MPR chief said the KPU had been reminded of the DPT problem since the beginning. They should have learned a lesson from the legislative election last April and should have taken corrective steps.

It was only two days before polling day, that the KPU agreed to update its DPTs after presidential aspirants Jusuf Kalla and Megawati Soekarnoputri submitted a proposal to the election body to verify problematic DPTs.

They asked the KPU to update the fixed voter`s lists and to permit unregistered voters to use their identity cards to vote in the presidential election.

"We agreed to update the DPTs and reexamine them to strike off duplicated names, the names of voters who have passed away, active military/police personnel and unmarried voters who are under 17 years old," KPU Chairman Anshary told a press conference on July 6.

He said the KPU had instructed its offices in the provinces and mayoralties, subdistrict election committees (PPK), polling committees (PPS) and polling organizers` groups (KPPS) to update the DPTs.

"We have also ordered the KPU rank and file to give soft copies of the updated DPTs to the campaign teams of the presidential candidates and polling witnesses," he said.
Indria Samego of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) said on July 1 that the DPT problems had occurred because KPU had not been serious in solving them.

The problems of unregistered voters and duplication of voters` lists had happened in the April Legislative Election and was believed to have reccurred in the presidential election on July 8.

Former chairman of the Islamic Students Association (PB HMI) Hasanuddin on July 2, called on the KPU not to be biased or allow the occurrence of fraud in the 2009 presidential election.

Hasanuddin and other members of HMI also called on KPU not to act as if it was a success team of a certain presidential candidate pair. He referred to the case of KPU`s familiarization banners instructing would-be voters to tick the picture or name of a certain presidential candidate pair on their ballots.

On the controversial banners, the secretary general of the General Election Monitoring Presidium of the Indonesian Nationalist Students Movement (LPPA GMNI), Ade Reza Hariyadi, accused the KPU of being biased in organizing the upcoming election by distributing the familiarization banners instructing the public to tick presidential pair number two.

"The case not only indicates the low degree of the KPU`s professionalism but also confirms allegations so far that the election body is biased and taking sides with a certain candidate since the legislative elections were held last April," he said.

"What the KPU has done in this case, intentionally or unintentionally, by technical error or systematic effort, has obviously tarnished democracy in the presidential election process," he said.

He urged the KPU to openly make clarifications on the matter and apologize to the public. However, KPU explained that the banner case had happened accidentally.
Harsh criticisms also came from Tjahjo Kumolo, an executive of the Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDIP), who said, on July 2, the KPU had become "arrogant and conceited in its attitudes."

Despite the public criticisms about the DPT problems and state-owned company officials serving as members of presidential candidates` success teams, the KPU had remained indifferent and was always hiding behind regulations, he said.

"Are they not aware of their attitudes or is it a part of a conspiracy to serve a certain interest?" Kumolo, head of the Megawati-Prabowo success team, wondered.
He also regretted the case of banners produced by KPU suggesting to the people to chose candidate number two (the SBY-Boediono pair).

A spokesman of the JK-Wiranto success team, Yuddy Chrisnandi of the Golkar Party shared Kumolo`s suspicion.
"We, the national team of JK-Wiranto, have the impression as if KPU is part of a conspiracy to engineer an SBY-Boediono victory," Yuddy Chrisnandi said in Jakarta on July 24.

The KPU often did not adequately respond to findings or protests submitted by the Mega-Prabowo and JK-Wiranto teams, including on DPTs. There was an impression that KPU did not have a good will to improve the DPTs and it even seemed the problems were made up, he said.

The KPU`s bias was seen since the familiarization of the presidential election where KPU in its banners clearly directed the public to vote for the SBY-Boediono duo, he said adding that various data indicating fraud were ignored by KPU.

KPU member Andi Nurpati on Monday (July 27) said that the commission was ready to defend itself in court when the Megawati-Prabowo or JK-Win pairs filed law suits.
"We have already established an advocacy team consisting of regional KPU members. Most of them have legal backgrounds," she said. A battle over the legitimacy of the SBY-Boediono electoral victory will now be decided in a Constitional Court session hall.

ANational Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) worker has even accused KPU of violating human rights by its failure to enable numerous eligible Indonesian voters to cast the ballots during the recent poll.

Nurkholis,coordinator of Homnas HAM's presidential election monitoring team, said on July 28, the Indonesians lost their voting right among other things because their names were not included in DPTs and these people numbered in the millions.