Prabowo alleges election fraud

JAKARTA: Indonesia could face a longer wait for the winner in this month's presidential election after one of the two candidates threatened to reject the official result, due to be announced tomorrow.
Former general Prabowo Subianto on Sunday demanded repeat elections in more than 5,000 polling stations where he said cheating took place.
Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo claimed victory after most unofficial quick counts from the July 9 election put him leading by about 5 percentage points.
But Prabowo disputed the counts and insisted that projections by other pollsters suggested a victory for him.

He urged the election commission to halt the counting process and properly investigate allegations of cheating in many polling stations.

"Failure to do so is a crime, I think, and will raise questions about the entire process," Prabowo said after a meeting with his lawyers.
"We may consider the entire process flawed," he said.
Some analysts said the demand was unrealistic because there was not much evidence of fraud.
"I don't think there are sound reasons to delay the vote counting," said Ikrar Nusa Bhakti, a political analyst at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences.

"The demand to repeat balloting in 5,800 polling stations also doesn't make sense."

The General Election Commission (KPU) said it would stick to the schedule and announce the result today.
"The entire process cannot be stopped," said commissioner Hadar Gumay Navis.
The commission finished verifying results from 16 provinces and was expected to verify tallies from the remaining 17 provinces tomorrow, he said.

If the commission ignores Prabowo's demands, he is likely to challenge the official result in the Constitutional Court, which has the power to rule on election disputes.
The court's own reputation has been undermined after its chief jugdge was sentenced to life for corruption last month.
Prabowo's campaign said it had enlisted 2,000 lawyers and paralegals for the court challenge, which could drag the process into August.
Analysts said Prabowo would have to prove that more than 5 million votes were stolen from him, in order to be able to change the result in in his favour.

Even his own campaign spokesman, former judge Mohammad Machfud, said it was impossible to change the outcome.
"As a Constitutional Court chief, I presided over election dispute trials and even verifying 150,000 votes was difficult," Machfud told Metro TV.
"The election is over," he said, adding that he was resigning from the campaign. – dpa