JAKARTA – Indonesia’s Constitutional Court on April 22 rejected appeals filed by lawyers representing both pairs of candidates who lost in the February presidential election and claimed it was marred by electoral fraud.

The formal count by the General Elections Commission announced on March 20 showed Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto and his running mate, Solo Mayor Gibran Rakabuming Raka, had won the election by a landslide.

They received 96,214,691 votes, representing 58.59 per cent of the total ballots cast in a three-way presidential election.  

Former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan and his running mate, veteran politician Muhaimin Iskandar, one of the two pairs of candidates who lost in the Feb 14 polls, wanted the voting to be conducted again and the court to disqualify Mr Prabowo and Mr Gibran, the elder son of incumbent President Joko Widodo.

“We reject the petition as a whole,” said Constitutional Court Chief Justice Suhartoyo, whose name has only one word, when reading the ruling on the appeal filed by the team of lawyers representing Mr Anies and Mr Muhaimin.

He added that there were dissenting opinions from three of the eight judges on the panel.

Lawyers representing the other losing pair – former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo and Professor Mahfud MD, former coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs – had filed a separate appeal.

The Constitutional Court also rejected this appeal on April 22, noting that the two appeals are similar in substance.

Among other claims, the lawyers representing Mr Anies and Mr Muhaimin questioned the impartiality of the national election commission and other relevant authorities, and claimed the government’s massive social aid distributed to voters during the campaigning period benefited the candidate more closely associated with the incumbent president.

Mr Widodo did not officially endorse anyone in the race to succeed him, but his elder son’s decision to be Mr Prabowo’s running mate is widely seen as a presidential seal of approval for the pair.

The court, however, dismissed the claim that the social aid had any effect on the election results.

“The Constitutional Court is not convinced that there was a cause-and-effect relation between social aid distribution and the increase of any candidate’s votes,” said Constitutional Court Justice Daniel Yusmic Pancastaki Foekh, when taking his turn to read the ruling document. 

Mr Anies and Mr Muhaimin’s lawyers also accused the incumbent government led by Mr Widodo of using his institutional privileges – including allegedly mobilising civil servants and security officers to be involved in discreet campaigning – to favour the Prabowo-Gibran ticket in the three-way race.  

There were reported instances of Mr Ganjar’s supporters being restrained by security officers during rallies, and their posters being allegedly taken down by the officers.  

Mr Anies also faced an unexpected regionwide power outage just as he was about to hold a rally in Madura, East Java. 

The losing candidates also took issue with the validity of Mr Gibran’s candidacy, which was based on a controversial last-minute revision to the minimum age rule, paving the way for him to contest the election despite being under the qualifying age of 40. Mr Gibran turned 36 on Oct 1, 2023.

On Oct 16, 2023, the Constitutional Court, which was then led by Chief Justice Anwar Usman, who is Mr Widodo’s brother-in-law, ruled that the age limit does not apply to anyone who is an elected regional leader.

Mr Anwar was removed from his position by the court’s ethics committee on Nov 7, following widespread public protests against the decision.

With regard to this issue, the lawyers representing Mr Anies accused Mr Widodo of committing nepotism, hence breaching a 1998 decree issued by the People’s Consultative Assembly and the relevant laws and regulations.

But the Constitutional Court on April 22 dismissed this accusation, reasoning that Mr Gibran’s status as the vice-president-elect was the result of an election, not an appointment.  

“Any situation that would breach an anti-nepotism clause is any position that is filled by way of direct appointment. Any position that is filled through a general election cannot be qualified as a form of nepotism,” said Mr Daniel.

At the end of the ruling, it was revealed that three judges – Mr Saldi Isra, Ms Enny Nurbaningsih and Mr Arief Hidayat – had dissenting opinions against the ruling.

Mr Saldi stressed the efforts of Mr Widodo’s active Cabinet members who helped with the campaign for the Prabowo-Gibran ticket. He termed the move as “the politicisation of social aids”.

“A number of active Cabinet ministers who handed social aids to the public, especially during a campaign period, almost always made tacit messages that could be understood as a form of support or covert campaigning,” Mr Saldi said, reading his dissenting opinion.  

Mr Arief said the government had committed election breaches structurally and systematically, while Ms Enny said the national election supervisory agency, which oversees the election commission, had failed to exercise its authority to ensure the election was held honestly and fairly.