Prabowo Calls on World Leaders to ‘Withhold Congratulatory Statements’ to Jokowi
By Josua Gantan on 02:12 pm Jul 23, 2014
Category Featured, News, Politics
Tags: 2014 Indonesia Presidential Election, Prabowo Subianto

Prabowo's campaign team will take allegations of electoral fraud to the Constitutional Court (Antara Photo/Wahyu Putro)

[Updated at 10:50 p.m. on Wednesday, July 23, 2014]

Jakarta. Prabowo Subianto’s campaign team has called on the international community to withhold congratulatory statements to President-Elect Joko Widodo until the losing candidate has had his accusations of electoral fraud heard at Indonesia’s Constitutional Court.

“Prabowo never withdrew from the election process,” spokesman Tantowi Yahya said at the InterContinental Hotel in Central Jakarta on Wednesday. “He withdrew from the vote-counting process.”

The press conference was attended by Tantowi, Prabowo’s lawyer Mahendrata and his multi-millionaire brother and financier Hashim Djojohadikusumo. The conference was announced last night to address whether Prabowo had formally withdrawn his candidacy to become Indonesia’s next president.

Prabowo addressed reporters on Tuesday just hours before the official announcement of the vote count and said that he was withdrawing from the counting process — an unexpected spanner in the works that was widely interpreted to mean he was rescinding his candidacy.

Joko was confirmed as Indonesia’s president-elect on Tuesday night by the General Elections Commission (KPU), winning 53.15 percent of the vote to Prabowo’s 46.85 percent.

Prabowo has steadfastly refused to yield to the official result, and has maintained throughout that “massive” electoral fraud tainted the 2014 election, to the point where the vote, in his view, cannot be regarded as fair.

“We will not surrender our right to hold the KPU accountable and we intend to do so through the legal system,” Tantowi said.

He added said the campaign team was preparing to take its case to the Constitutional Court.

“We are in the process of preparing our challenge, which should be due in three days’ time,” he said.

“An estimated 50,000 polling stations have reported irregularities, putting an estimated 21 million votes in question,” he added. “The indication of massive fraud and widespread irregularities […] is overwhelming.

“Bawaslu [the Elections Supervisory Body] made recommendations to hold revotes in over 5,000 polling stations in Jakarta alone, as well as in heavily populated regions in East Java.

“These recommendations were completely ignored by the KPU, even though the law allows three days from the election day to investigate,” Tantowi said.

The KPU said Prabowo was welcome to challenge the integrity of the vote in the Constitutional Court.

“It’s a dangerous precedent for future elections. If we ignore these recommendations, what will we ignore next? This is a very slippery slope,” Tantowi said.

“We respectfully request the international community to withhold any congratulatory statements until due process is complete,” he added.

Prabowo was not present at the press conference.

Congratulations and best wishes from world leaders, however, have poured in for Joko ever since the KPU declared him the winner of the election.

US President Barack Obama called Joko on Wednesday morning, following scores of other presidents and prime ministers.

“Obama called me at 11 a.m. to congratulate me. He asked me [in Indonesian] ‘Apa kabar’ [how are you],” Joko said.

He added that Obama said he would like to hold a meeting with him at the next Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in China in November.

US Secretary of State John Kerry also congratulated Joko in a press release sent to the Indonesian media.

“The United States looks forward to working with President-Elect Widodo as we deepen our partnership, promote our shared objectives globally, and expand people-to-people ties between our nations.”

Besides the US leaders, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak all sent their best wishes to Joko.
Lee took to his Facebook account on Tuesday night to praise Joko for his victory.

“Congratulations to Jokowi on his election as Indonesia’s next president. Looking forward to working with him to strengthen Indonesia-Singapore friendship. — LHL,” Lee wrote.

Najib wrote on his Twitter account, also late on Tuesday: “Congrats to @jokowi_do2 on winning the Indonesia presidential elections. Hope 2 reaffirm our bilateral relations & look fwd to seeing u around.”

Meanwhile, European Commission President Jose Manuel Durao Barroso also congratulated Joko in a statement issued to the press.