Jakarta. Losing presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto and his running mate Sandiaga Uno have indicated that they will not attend Friday's preliminary hearing by the Constitutional Court of their election dispute.

"Mr. Prabowo and Mr. Sandiaga will not be present and will be represented by their legal team. Mr. Prabowo has also asked his supporters to listen to him and refrain from going to the Constitutional Court," campaign team spokesman Dahnil Anzar Simanjuntak said on Thursday.

He added that the lawsuit was not only about Prabowo and Sandiaga, but reflects the public's desire, especially those who feel that the presidential election was riddled with fraud.

"This concerns the rights and voices of people [whose votes] were rigged based on valid evidence, so we stress that the dispute at the Constitutional Court is not just about Prabowo and Sandiaga, but necessary for a healthy democracy," Dahnil said.

He said Prabowo and Sandiaga would stay on the constitutional path.

"Mr. Prabowo and Mr. Sandiaga completely obey the law, which is why the path they have taken is in accordance with the law," he said.

Andre Rosiade, another campaign team spokesman, said 15 people from their camp would attend Friday's hearing. Eight of them are members of the legal team, including lead counsel Bambang Widjojanto. The remainder are members of the campaign team.

At least 48,000 members of the police and military will be deployed to secure the area around the Constitutional Court in Central Jakarta.

The election result announced by the General Elections Commission (KPU) last month showed that the incumbent, Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, and his running mate Ma'ruf Amin received nearly 17 million more votes than Prabowo and Sandiaga.

Quantitatively, the Prabowo camp's legal team must prove to the court that 17 million votes were fraudulent. In a revision of the lawsuit the team submitted on Tuesday, it argued that Jokowi and Ma'ruf received 22 million more votes than they should have. 

They agreed with the KPU's calculation of the number of votes the losing candidate pair received, but disagreed with the vote count in favor of the winning pair. According to the legal team's calculation, Jokowi and Ma'ruf likely received 63.5 million votes instead of 85.6 million.

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