Markus Junianto Sihaloho – The campaign team of Megawati Sukarnoputri and Prabowo Subianto has lodged legal action demanding that the Constitution Court annul President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's sweeping victory and order fresh elections, or "at least" order elections to proceed to the second-round runoff.

Megawati is the second losing candidate to take legal action against the outcome of July 8's presidential elections, although in contrast to Vice President Jusuf Kalla's campaign team, Megawati's camp is taking a much tougher line.

Arteria Dahlan, Megawati's legal advisor, speaking at a news conference after filing the legal action with the Constitutional Court on Tuesday, alleged that the campaign team had found evidence of systematic and massive manipulation by the General Elections Commission (KPU), with the support of the government bureaucracy.

She claimed the campaign team had found 28 million manipulated votes the KPU had awarded to Yudhoyono and running mate Boediono, which had tipped the balance in favor of Yudhoyono's first-round victory. "If the 28 million votes were not awarded to SBY-Boediono, then they would have only got 48.7 percent of the total national vote, which means the election would have gone into a second round," Arteria said.

A second-round presidential election run-off was the campaign team's first demand on the Constitution Court, she said. "If this demand is not granted, we want a ruling directing the KPU to conduct fresh polls across the country," she said.

If the second demand was not accepted, she said, the court should order the KPU to conduct new elections in at least 25 provinces, where the allegations of manipulations had been allegedly found by the campaign team. "We have provided ample evidence of manipulation in the complaint brief," she said.

Arteria added that the team also attached to the complaint investigative reports made by the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) and the Election Supervisory Commission (Bawaslu).

The legal challenge follows a similar action lodged by Kalla's campaign team with the court on Monday. Kalla's complaint argued that the presidential election needed to be re-run because of a number of alleged violations, in particular, the flawed final voters list used by KPU.

Abdul Mukhtie Fadjar, a Constitutional Court judge, said on Tuesday that legal actions against the outcome of the polls must be settled before Aug. 12.