Telly Nathalia, Jakarta – Prabowo Subianto's team of lawyers requested the Constitutional Court on Friday to disqualify Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and Ma'ruf Amin from April's presidential election.
It also asked the court to declare Prabowo Subianto and his running mate Sandiaga Uno as the real winners of the 2019 presidential election or, failing that, to order the General Elections Commission, or KPU, to conduct a re-election in at least 12 provinces across Indonesia.
These demands were part of 15 proposals to the court made by the Prabowo-Sandiaga legal team during the first session of an election dispute trial that was made open for public.
The KPU had declared on May 21 that Jokowi and Ma'ruf had won the presidential election in April.
Prabowo's supporters took their complaints against the election result to the street, trying to force the hands of the Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) to overturn the result of the election.
A protest in front of the Bawaslu on May 21 escalated into violent riots in several parts of Central Jakarta that continued until the next day.
More than 400 suspected rioters were arrested by the police as well as 13 main suspects related to the rioting and an assassination plot that apparently targeted at least five high-profile figures.
Police have confirmed that the nine people killed during two days of violent clashes with police and soldiers were rioters, but who shot them and where their bodies were found are still unclear.
According to the national human rights watchdog Komnas HAM's initial investigation, bullets found in the victims' bodies were different to those used by the police and the military.
The Prabowo-Sandiaga legal team, led by Bambang Widjodjanto, finally filed an official challenge against the election result at the Constitutional Court on May 24.
The first trial session on Friday was an opportunity for Prabowo and Sandiaga's legal team to express their demands and arguments. But their clients chose not to appear in court.
Demands
Prabowo's legal team delivered a total of 15 demands to the court on Friday:
1. Approve all the demands set out by the team.
2. Declare that the KPU's presidential election result was not valid.
3. Declare that the correct vote counts were 63,573,169 or 48 percent for Jokowi-Ma'ruf, and 68,650,239 or 52 percent for Prabowo and Sandiaga.
4. Declare that Jokowi and Ma'ruf have committed election offenses and a structured, systematic and massive fraud.
5. Disqualify Jokowi-Ma'ruf from the 2019 presidential election.
6. Declare Prabowo and Sandiaga as the elected president and vice president for 2019-2024.
7. Order the KPU to issue a decision establishing Prabowo and Sandiaga as the elected president and vice president.
8. Declare that Jokowi and Maruf have committed electoral offenses and fraud in the 2019 presidential election by inflating and stealing votes in a structured, systematic and massive manner.
9. Decide that Prabowo and Sandiaga are the elected president and vice president for 2019-24.
10. Order the KPU to issue a decision immediately establishing Prabowo and Sandiaga as the elected president and vice president for 2019-24, or
11. Order the KPU to conduct a fair re-election in all regions, or
12. Order the KPU to conduct fair re-elections in several provinces in Indonesia, including West Java, Central Java, East Java, Banten, Jakarta, North Sumatra, South Sumatra, Lampung, South Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, Papua and Central Kalimantan.
13. Order the appropriate state bodies to dismiss all KPU commissioners and recruit their replacements.
14. Order the [new] KPU [commissioners] to determine a new permanent voters' list.
15. Order the [new] KPU to evaluate its vote counting system.
Accusations
Prabowo's legal team said Jokowi was not a run-of-the-mill rival for their client, but an incumbent president who was able to use his power to gain more votes.
"A few days before election day, [Jokowi] said his supporters should come to polling stations wearing white shirts [Jokowi's unofficial uniform]... This call, by a presidential nominee who also happened to be the incumbent president violated the confidential principle of election," Bambang said.
He said the statement could have had a huge psychological impact on voters, which violated the principle of free choice.
Another of Prabowo's lawyers, Denny Indrayana, accused the National Police (Polri) and the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) of taking Jokowi-Ma'ruf's side.
"The fact that state apparatuses like Polri and BIN were biased [toward Jokowi] is proof that there was a structured, systematic and massive [electoral] fraud happening all over Indonesia," Denny told the court.
Next session
The trial has been adjourned until Tuesday next week when lawyers representing the KPU, the Bawaslu and the Jokowi-Ma'ruf ticket will present their argument.
The judges have also asked the Prabowo-Sandiaga legal team to provide stronger evidence to support their case.
So far they have only provided copies of news articles which they claimed were biased toward Jokowi and Ma'ruf.