Erfan Erlin, Jakarta – The Civil Society Coalition for Safeguarding Democratic Elections has rejected the results of the 2024 elections. They are also inviting the public to save democracy in Indonesia, which has been damaged due to the electoral crimes that took place in a structured, systematic and massive manner.
Coalition representative Julius Ibrani from the Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI) said the result of voting held on February 14 confirmed that the administration of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo had mobilised state resources to endure a victory for presidential candidates Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto and Widodo's eldest son Gibran Rakabuming Raka.
"Right from the start the coalition considered Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming to be problematic candidates", said Ibrani on Friday February 16.
Ibrani said Prabowo is a human rights violator because he carried out the abduction of human rights activists in 1997-1998, which was acknowledged by the Officers Honorary Council (DKP) and resulted in him being discharged from military service on August 3, 1998.
Meanwhile the advance of Rakabuming Raka as Prabowo's vice presidential running mate clearly and obviously ignored the reformasi agenda – referring to the political reform process that began in 1998.
Rakabuming Raka's nomination was ridden with practices of corruption, collusion and nepotism (KKN), as well as violating constitutional ethics, and he does not represent the interests of the ordinary people.
"Because his main interest is to secure and perpetuate Jokowi's personal power, and his family and cronies", said Ibrani.
Rakabuming Raka is considered unworthy of being a vice presidential candidate because his nomination began with an act of piracy against the Constitutional Court (MK) through his uncle, Anwar Usman, who was the Constitutional Court chief justice at the time.
The Coalition believes that the Constitutional Court Honorary Council (MKMK) ruling clearly stated that there was a serious ethical violation in the 90/2023 ruling that opened the way for Rakabuming Raka's vice presidential candidacy.
The acceptance of his candidacy by the General Elections Commission (KPU) is also considered problematic because it should have been rejected by the KPU since it was not in line with the KPU's own regulations (PKPU).
The Coalition stated that the PKPU was only changed later after the registration of the Prabowo-Gibran presidential and vice presidential candidate ticket had already been accepted.
The Coalition also alluded to the Election Organisers Ethics Council (DKPP) ruling which stated that KPU chairperson Hasyim Asy’ari and KPU commissioners committed serious ethics violations in accepting Rakabuming Raka's nomination and were subsequently sanctioned with severe warnings.
Coalition representative Gufron Mabruri from Indonesian Human Rights Watch (Imparsial) added that what happened actually shows how Widodo, his family and his cronies used their power to highjack state institutions such as the Constitutional Court and the KPU.
"They no longer care about ethics, the country's constitution, democracy and governance that is free from KKN. Acting to violate ethics, the constitution, the law and civilised democratic politics", he said.
Widodo is considered to have misused and mobilised state resources, including the state apparatus, government programs and the state budget, and even his own authority as president to ensure a win for the Prabowo-Gibran ticket. Since the beginning of the electoral process, the Coalition found that the electoral crimes (electoral evil) were structured, systematic and massive (TSM).
The number of cases of violations since the registration of the three presidential candidate tickets on November 18, 2023, up until the cooling off period a week before voting day, jumped by almost 300 percent compared to the number of cases in the May-October 2023 monitoring period.
Even on the day just before voting on February 13, president Widodo issued a "pork barrel politics" policy to increase the performance allowance for Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) employees.
"It is appropriate to question this policy because it was clearly an attempt to conquer Bawaslu. In that context, the massive violations that occurred on voting day and after showed that the crimes before voting day continued", he added.
He said that electoral crimes took the form of intimidation (as acknowledged by Bawaslu) to support candidate pair number 2, erroneous data input (as acknowledged by the KPU) as well as vote theft and inflated votes for Prabowo-Gibran on the KPU's Recapitulation Information System (Sirekap).
Then, voting for Prabowo-Gibran by Polling Station Organising Committee (KPPS) members and irresponsible individuals on the orders of the KPPS or village officials and so forth show that the 2024 elections, particularly the presidential election, was illegitimate and undermined the people's sovereignty and democracy.
"Reporting election violations to Bawaslu and the MK, as suggested by Jokowi, is a futile action, because the MK and Bawaslu are state institutions which have been proven not to be subject to the good of the ordinary people but subject to the political wishes of Jokowi and his cronies", he explained.
Therefore the Coalition stated that it rejects the results of the February 14 election. The coalition is also demanding that the elections be re-run and organised by new KPU and Bawaslu members selected by an independent team.
The coalition is also demanding that the Prabowo-Gibran ticket be disqualified because they have clearly violated ethics, the constitution and the law, both directly and indirectly. (rca)
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Kejahatan secara TSM, Koalisi Masyarakat Sipil Tolak Hasil Pemilu 2024".]
