Indonesia opposition plans legal challenge after president’s re-election confirmed

A woman holds a placard during a protest following the announcement of the last month presidential election results outside Election Supervisory Board (Bawaslu) headquarters in Jakarta, Indonesia. The placard reads "Fighting Cheated Election" - REUTERS 

JAKARTA (Reuters): Indonesian President Joko Widodo comfortably won re-election in last month’s poll, an official count showed on Tuesday, throwing the spotlight on his opponent Prabowo Subianto who has refused to concede defeat after claiming widespread cheating.

The result released by the General Election Commission (KPU) confirms unofficial counts by private pollsters in the April 17 election, giving Widodo a 55.5% share of votes against 44.5% for retired general Prabowo.

Widodo won more than 85 million votes of a total of 154 million cast in the world’s third-largest democracy, though after repeated claims of fraud by the Prabowo campaign an opposition official said it would launch a legal challenge.

“We decided the number two (Prabowo) ticket will lodge a lawsuit with the Constitutional Court,” Sufmi Dasco Ahmad, the legal director of Prabowo’s campaign team, told reporters.

Earlier, a witness for the team and the leading opposition party refused to sign and validate the official results, announced more than a day earlier than expected, after the agency worked into the early hours of Tuesday.

“We won’t give up in the face of this injustice, cheating, lies, and these actions against democracy,” said Azis Subekti, the witness.

On Monday, the election agency dismissed claims of systematic cheating, citing a lack of evidence, and independent observers and analysts have said the poll was free and fair.

It was not immediately clear if planned protests by Prabowo’s supporters would go ahead, but in a video ahead of the result he had urged supporters to be peaceful.

“I remind you, we must be peaceful in our struggle, we must be free from violence,” Prabowo said in the video, which media website Kumparan.com said it received on Tuesday.

In a statement, Hasto Kristiyanto, secretary of Widodo’s campaign team, said, “We are grateful for this victory. This is the people’s victory.”