Prabowo Subianto seals victory as Indonesia's next leader after top court rejects rivals' appeals

Jakarta

Indonesia's highest court on Monday rejected appeals filed by two losing presidential candidates seeking a new vote, alleging widespread irregularities and fraud in February's election.

The 5-3 majority ruling by the Constitutional Court's eight-judge panel rejected the arguments, saying the losing candidates' legal teams failed to prove allegations that Prabowo Subianto's victory was the result of widespread fraud.

The court entirely rejects the petitioners' appeal, Constitutional Court Chief Justice Suhartoyo said Monday, after a panel of eight judges took a six-hour marathon to publicly read in turn its reasoning on the two appeals distinct. The verdict cannot be appealed.

The General Election Commission, known as the KPU, had certified a landslide victory for President-elect Subianto, but his rivals, former Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan and former Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo claimed the victory depended on large-scale fraud and widespread state interference.

They also alleged nepotism, challenging the candidacy of outgoing President Joko Widodos' eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as Subianto's running mate.

Baswedan and Pranowo argued that Raka, 37, should have been disqualified because the minimum age for candidates is 40, and they asked the court to bar him from voting again. Before the election, Raka was granted a controversial exception to this requirement by the Constitutional Court, then headed by Anwar Usman, Widodos' brother-in-law. Usman was later forced to resign as chief justice for failing to recuse himself.

The case was decided by eight judges instead of nine members of the court, as Usman, who still sits on the court as an associate judge, had to recuse himself.

Subianto, the current defense minister, won the election with 58.6 percent of the vote, or more than 96 million ballots, more than double the number received by each of the two finalists, according to the KPU.

Losing candidates accused Widodo of widespread abuse of power, saying he used officials at every level, from cabinet members to village chiefs, to state policies such as social assistance programs, to provide support to Subianto and Raka. Indonesian presidents are expected to remain neutral in elections to succeed them.

Baswedan and Pranowos' legal challenges complained that large government welfare payments were disbursed in the middle of the campaign, far more than the amounts spent during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that Widodo distributed funds in person in a number of provinces.

But the top court rejected the accusations, saying it was not convinced that the president intervened to change the conditions of candidacy in favor of his son and that he did not commit nepotism by approving and supporting his son's candidacy for vice president.

A position obtained in a general election cannot be classified as a form of nepotism, said Judge Arief Hidayat.

The court found that there was no evidence that Widodo and his administration circumvented laws and norms to support Subianto. The ruling was widely expected after four members of Indonesia's cabinet testified in court on April 5 that no rules had been violated in the distribution of government aid.

However, in a dissenting opinion, Judge Saldi Isra said it was impossible to deny that the social assistance was paid in the middle of the campaign for electoral purposes.

I have a moral obligation to warn in order to anticipate and prevent the repetition of similar situations in the future, Isra said.

Hundreds of protesters gathered near the court melted when a broadcast of the proceedings on a television screen outside indicated that their candidate's case had failed.

Subianto, who has been linked to human rights abuses under Suharto's authoritarian rule, has previously run for president four times and twice unsuccessfully challenged his losses to Widodo. His refusal to accept the results of the 2019 presidential election led to violence that left nine people dead in Jakarta.

Widodo, the first Indonesian president from Jakarta's elite and very popular, will end his second and final term in October.