Jakarta – It was almost impossible to expect that the Constitutional Court would deliver a ruling other than the one it handed down on Monday. After all, that was the most consequential decision the court had ever issued in almost two decades of its existence.
For the first time in the country's history, the court had to make several tough calls: whether to order a revote for the presidential election, annul Prabowo Subianto's victory or disqualify his running mate Gibran Rakabuming Raka in the event of a rerun.
Even if the court had ruled in favor of just one of the election challenges, it would have set off a chain of events leading to chaos in the country's political system.
While the court did decide on a revote in the past, that case referred to a regional election for choosing a regent.
Ordering a nationwide rerun of the presidential polls is an entirely different matter, with multiple repercussions.
Nullifying the election win for Prabowo, who recently went on a diplomatic tour to East Asia, would have been a bridge too far, with the potential for triggering fresh political turmoil.
Disqualifying Gibran as a vice presidential candidate altogether might have seemed the most plausible political option. Going down that path, however, would mean the court contravening its October 2023 ruling to lower the age of candidacy that allowed President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's son in the running in the first place.
Then again, not even former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan and former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo, the losing candidates who challenged the election results, were convinced that their lawsuits would succeed.
Privately, their lawyers and campaign staff conceded that Anies and Ganjar's chances of achieving a favorable outcome were minuscule, and emphasized that resorting to filing an electoral dispute with the Constitutional Court was part of their civic duty to arrest Indonesia's democratic decline.
At best, all they could expect were dissenting opinions from progressive justices like Saldi Isra or Enny Nurbaningsih, who have a long record of conscientious rulings.
As expected, Saldi issued a dissenting opinion, criticizing the General Elections Commission (KPU) for failing to uphold the principle of fairness in this year's presidential election.
He also lambasted President Jokowi for abuse of power by manipulating civil servants and social aid distribution help influence the polls' outcome on Feb. 14.
In addition, Saldi criticized the current practice of allowing the court to adjudicate only legal challenges against the results of an election, and proposed instead that in the future, the court should not only handle election disputes but also cases dealing with the ethics and execution of the electoral process as a whole.
In closing, Saldi wrote in his dissenting opinion that a revote be conducted in those electoral districts where violations were found.
Of course, his opinion will not change anything. It amounts a mere slap on the wrist for those who meddled in this year's "celebration of democracy" and a consolation prize for the losing candidates after a grueling, two-month legal battle.
The majority of the court's nine justices opined that they should judge only the constitutionality and legality of the 2024 general election.
In the final ruling on Monday, five justices narrowed their focus on whether Gibran's candidacy was lawful according to existing regulations, if the KPU followed proper procedure in certifying candidates and if the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) took action in responding to complaints about the government's partiality in the elections.
The issues surrounding the 2024 presidential election are about more than violating the prevailing rules; rather, it suffered from the bigger problem of lacking ethics and propriety.
Unfortunately, the majority of the Constitutional Court justices held their noses and looked the other way.
Source: https://www.thejakartapost.com/opinion/2024/04/23/no-surprises.htm