Prabowo Says He Will Reject 'Fraudulent' Election Result
Jakarta. Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto said he will reject the official election result set to be announced by the General Elections Commission, or KPU, on May 22, arguing that a "structured, systematic and massive" vote-rigging had plagued both the presidential and legislative elections on April 17.
Prabowo said he still hopes the KPU will carry out its official count "honestly and professionally," adding that it would be a betrayal to the Indonesian people and the country if the commission fails to do so.
"We still have a glimmer of hope. We say to the KPU, the children of Indonesia at the KPU, the fate of our nation is on your shoulders. You must decide. You must choose," he said at the "Revealing Facts of Fraud in the 2019 Presidential Election" seminar at Grand Sahid Jaya Hotel in Central Jakarta on Tuesday.
The seminar was organized by the former Army general's campaign team.
"Uphold truth and justice for the well-being of the nation and the Indonesian people, or continue the lies and injustice. [The latter] means you are allowing the Indonesian people to be colonized. We still put our hopes in you, but I will reject a fraudulent result," Prabowo said.
Prabowo also said he is preparing a will, although he did not explain what for.
"After this [event], I will return to Kertanegara [his residence] and summon my legal advisors. I am going to write a will," he said.
The secretary general of the Beringin Karya Party (Berkarya) and the deputy leader of Prabowo's campaign team Priyo Budi Santoso said the will is going to show Prabowo's commitment to the Indonesian people.
"Saying that he is going to write a will means Prabowo is ready to risk everything on behalf of the people. If the people want their sovereignty to be defended, he will choose that path and won’t give up," Priyo said, as quoted by detik.com.
Prabowo claimed in the seminar that the country’s democracy is being "raped," pointing to the arrests of some of his supporters as proof.
"Democracy is the best course for this country. But we have evidence that our allies, our fighters, are being raped in this Republic of Indonesia. We're paying close attention. We've listened. We're now convinced that we have won the mandate from the people!" Prabowo said.
Treason
Prabowo also urged law enforcers not to abuse their authority, telling them not to intimidate him and his supporters with "a weapon given by the people."
The police have charged several key Prabowo supporters with treason, including National Mandate party politician Eggi Sudjana and Islamic cleric Bachtiar Natsir.
"There is no need to threaten people with treason! These people are not guilty! Army generals risked their lives since they were young! They are not traitors! We are acting in defense of the country and the nation!" he said.
Prabowo said many people have questioned his political stance since his rival, incumbent president Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, sent an envoy to meet him at the end of the election.
Prabowo said he is open to dialogue but also not ready to give up despite quick count by pollsters and the official count by the KPU, which has now counted over 80 percent of the vote, showing him trailing Jokowi by double digits.
"Some people have asked me, 'Prabowo, what's your stance?’ Someone asked to meet me. Repeatedly asking me to meet them. We can talk, we can negotiate, but we will not surrender!" Prabowo said.
Inconsistent Claims
Despite multiple victory declarations, Prabowo and his running mate Sandiaga Uno still seem to be unsure how many votes they won in the 2019 presidential election.
In one of the victory declarations, they claimed to have won 54.24 percent of the vote. The same count had rival pair Jokowi and Ma'ruf Amin trailing with 44.14 percent of the vote. The remaining 1.62 percent were invalid votes.
This calculation was done by collecting C1 forms, which contain vote tallies, from 444,976 polling stations, or nearly 55 percent out of the total of 810,329 polling stations.
"For statisticians, this number is valid and it can only change if we were 'robbed,'" Laode Kamaluddin, the man behind Prabowo's earlier "we won with 62 percent of the vote" claim, said on Tuesday.
Prabowo's campaign team never mentioned the regions where their data came from, a crucial detail that can distort vote predictions.
Prabowo has also claimed to have won 55.4 percent of the vote according to exit polls and 62 percent according to real-time tracking of the vote count.
Laode, who is in charge of data collection for Prabowo's campaign team, has challenged pollsters to compare their data with his.
"The question is, where is your data? This is my data. We are entering a new era of big data and this is how we have come to believe that Prabowo and Sandiaga are the President and Vice President of the Republic of Indonesia [for] 2019-2024," he said.
Campaign team spokesman Dahnil Anzar Simanjuntak said now that his team has presented the data, no one should be accusing the Prabowo camp of spreading hoaxes anymore.
"If someone says it's a hoax, let's debate the issue. Let's compare data. We won't let anyone get arrested again just because some people think they were spreading hoaxes," Dahnil said.
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