Carlos Paath, Erwin Sihombing & Yustinus Paat, Jakarta – The Constitutional Court is expected to reject a lawsuit filed by losing presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto based on a shortage of evidence to support his allegation of massive cheating – while a new survey suggests that the former Army general would in any case lose in an election rerun.
Masykurudin Hafidz, deputy coordinator for the People's Voter Education Network (JPRR), said the justices' comments during the first day of the hearing into the case indicated that Prabowo's lawsuit largely fails to substantiate its claims.
On Wednesday the full panel of nine justices gave Prabowo's legal team a day to fix numerous errors in their claim, saying the document lacked "substantial and convincing" arguments and relevant evidence, and contained a string of spelling errors.
"Yesterday's hearing indicates that the lawsuit is not strong enough to result in a finding of systematic, massive and structured [election] violations," Masykurudin said in Jakarta on Thursday.
He said it wasn't likely that the court would rule based on assumptions, let alone order revoting in eight provinces – North Sumatra, Jakarta, Central Java, East Java, Bali, North Maluku, Papua and West Papua – as Prabowo's team has demanded.
The revotes, if granted, would affect around 32 million votes, inconsistent with the Prabowo team's allegations of 24 million "problematic" votes across 52,000 poll stations as a result of "structured, systematic and massive" cheating by General Elections Commission (KPU) officials in favor of the winning pair Joko Widodo-Jusuf Kalla.
The vote gap according to the official KPU result, meanwhile, stands at 8.4 million votes, with Joko leading over Prabowo with 53.15 percent of the total 133.6 million valid votes.
The number of eligible voters who did not cast a valid ballot reached around 30 percent, or 56 million voters. "It's a small possibility that the court will consider revotes," Maskurudin said.
A gathering calling itself the Coalition of Advocates for Democracy called on the Constitutional Court to reject outright the legal challenge filed by the Prabowo camp – saying it was flawed both in substance and procedure.
"We suggest [the court] not accept the request of presidential candidate No. 1 [Prabowo]," said prominent jurist Todung Mulya Lubis, a member of the coalition.
He expressed his concern that some justices' past affiliations with political parties might affect their decision on the case – chief justice Hamdan Zoelva and justice Patrialis Akbar are former politicians from the Crescent Star Party (PBB) and the National Mandate Party (PAN), members of Prabowo's political coalition.
"The court should not turn this trial of the presidential election dispute into a political stage. Their investigation of the dispute will be a test for the court, with its reputation at stake," said Todung.
Separately, Trimedya Panjaitan, the head of the legal team for Joko-Kalla, expressed confidence that the court would not order a revote as long as it was unlikely to alter the election result.
"If that's not likely, then there's no use [revoting]," Trimedya said, "That is, if the court is being consistent with its handling of previous cases."
Meanwhile, Prabowo's legal team members said they had revised their written statement of claim ahead of the Thursday midday deadline imposed by the court.
"We've completed the documents – as suggested by the nine constitutional justices yesterday," lawyer Alamsyah Hanafiah said at the court upon submitting the revised lawsuit. "It's quite thick now, up to 196 pages." The document earlier contained 146 pages.
Another lawyer on the team, Elza Syarief, said the claim had undergone previous revisions since it was lodged on July 26. "We've made some improvements based on advice and input from the constitutional court justices before Wednesday's hearing," Elza said.
The team also said they had submitted a list of 76 items of evidence, the materials of which were so voluminous they required five vehicles to transport them to court. "We hope to bring in those five cars or trucks today," said Syahroni, another lawyer acting for Prabowo.
Syahroni said that 2,000 witnesses were standing by in Jakarta, ready to testify for Prabowo – although justice Arief Hidayat said on Wednesday that the court would only hear from 25 witnesses for the plaintiffs. "Technically, we will select from them those that can give quality testimony, who have the capacity," the judge said.
A recent survey conducted by the Indonesia Survey Circle Network (LSI-N) suggests that even if the court ordered the election rerun, it would be difficult for Prabowo to win due to an erosion of his levels of support.
The survey, conducted on Aug. 4-6 and involving 1,200 respondents from across the country, found that if the election was re-run at that time, 57.06 percent would have voted for Joko-Kalla and 30.39 percent for Prabowo-Hatta, with 12.55 percent undecided.
"The LSI-N survey also showed that 67.49 percent of respondents trust the official KPU result – that Jokowi-JK are the winners of the presidential election," said LSI-N researcher Ade Mulyana during a press conference on Thursday. "Only 18.52 percent don't trust it."
He suggested that Prabowo's popularity had declined because of growing public perception that we was a sore loser, based on his harsh reaction to the official result. "The public respond negatively to the Prabowo-Hatta team's delegitimization of the KPU and its decision," Ade added.
Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/court-likely-reject-prabowos-election-fraud-claim-lack-evidence/