Telly Nathalia, Jakarta – The Indonesian government is threatening legal actions to stop anyone attempting to delegitimize the results of the official election count by the General Elections Commission, or KPU, the Coordinating Minister for Politics, Law and Security Wiranto said on Monday.
"We won't hesitate to take strong actions against those who violate the law to delegitimize government institutions," Wiranto said after a meeting with top government officials to evaluate the results of last month's elections.
Since then, presidential nominee Prabowo Subianto has refused to concede defeat despite quick count results showing a decisive win for his rival, incumbent president Joko "Jokowi" Widodo.
Instead, the former general's campaign team has been throwing doubts on the legitimacy of the KPU's official count. They claimed that KPU's election data were corrupted to favor Jokowi and his running mate Ma'ruf Amin.
Prabowo has claimed at least four times that he is the real winner of the presidential race according to a vote count by his own team. Prabowo said he won 62 percent of the votes, but has never provided real data to support his claim.
Prabowo has also suggested that there has been umpteen instances of voter fraud during the elections and called on his supporters not to trust the KPU.
Prabowo, accompanied by his running mate Sandiaga Uno, invited foreign journalists to his residence in South Jakarta on Monday afternoon to repeat his claim that voter fraud may have lost him the election, at least according to the quick count results.
Prabowo's IT team has also filed a report with the Election Monitoring Agency (Bawaslu) last week, charging that the quick count results were unreliable since they contradicted election data compiled by their own team.
Rizieq Shihab, the leader of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), who has been living in exile in Saudi Arabia since 2017, said in a video broadcast last week that the KPU should disqualify Jokowi and Ma'ruf from the presidential race because they have committed a "systematic, structured and massive voter fraud."
For this reason, Rizieq demanded that the KPU declare Prabowo and Sandiaga as winners of the election irrespective of the number of votes that they won.
Rizieq had escaped Indonesia to avoid facing various criminal charges, including a porno tape scandal.
FPI is one of a number of hardline Islamic organizations that threw their support behind Prabowo and Sandiaga in the election.
"There is someone, now living abroad, who speaks every day to the media to provoke people to take unconstitutional actions," Wiranto told Suara Pembaruan, obviously referring to Rizieq.
Wiranto said he has asked the National Police to take firm action against provocators like Rizieq, and also against newspapers and magazines that publish his incendiary statements.
"Any media that helps people violate the law, we can shut down. The law exists to allow us to take such actions for the sake of national security," Wiranto said.
The chief security minister also said that the government will not hesitate to take legal action against anyone trying to delegitimize the KPU on social media.
"To those people who keep trying to break up this country and delegitimize government institutions by spreading hatred and slander, please stop," Wiranto said in a written statement.
"I urge people to ignore any agitation to rise against a legitimate government. That would be a violation of the law and totally unconstitutional," he said..
The KPU is expected to announce the results of its official count on May 22. As of Monday evening, it has counted almost 70 percent of the total votes, which showed a comfortable win for Jokowi and Ma'ruf with 56.31 percent of the total votes. Prabowo and Sandi lagged way behind with 43.69 percent of the votes in the two-way election.