TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – The Merah Putih Coalition’s advocacy team has been collecting evidence of alleged electoral frauds during the presidential election in order to challenge the election results at the Constitutional Court (MK). “We are gathering proof of frauds,” said Alamsyah, a member of the advocacy team, on Thursday.
Alamsyah said the evidence was being gathered by the coalition’s volunteers and party cadres in several regions, with Gorontalo and Jakarta as the regions suspected of seeing massive electoral frauds. “In Jakarta, the General Elections Commission (KPU) did not heed the Elections Supervisory Agency’s (Bawaslu) recommendation to hold re-elections at 5,800 polling stations,” he said.
In Gorontalo, volunteers also found falsification of C1 forms at multiple polling stations, which was indicated by 100-percent voters’ participation with all ballots favoring the Joko Widodo-Jusuf Kalla ticket. “100-percent victory is impossible. There were witnesses from our parties there,” he said.
According to Alamsyah, the objectives of challenging the electoral results were not only to secure victory for the Prabowo-Hatta pair, but also to teach the KPU and Bawaslu a lesson to organize fair and democratic elections at all election levels. “Not just in cities. Poor regions must also be monitored,” he said.
The decision to challenge the election results at the Constitutional Court was stated soon after defeated presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto declared his withdrawal from the presidential election. The Prabowo-Hatta camp said the KPU had underplayed the rigging allegations it reported when tallying the ballots.
RIKY FERDIANTO