Two defeated candidates in Indonesia’s presidential election appealed to the country’s top court on Wednesday, asking for the results to be overturned and new elections to be held.
Former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan and former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo filed separate complaints with the Constitutional Court after Defense Minister Prabowo was declared the winner of the February 14 election last week.
The electoral commission said Prabowo Subianto won nearly 60% of the vote, enough to avoid a runoff.
During his court appearance, Baswedan claimed that outgoing President Joko Widodo distributed social aid during the campaign to sway the election in Prabowo’s favour. He told the justices that if the election results stand, the practice will become the norm and set a bad precedent.
Planovo used his appeal to ask the court to disqualify Subianto and his running mate, President Widodo’s son, Djibran Rakhabumin Raqqa.
Raqqa, 37, was nominated as a candidate after the Constitutional Court exempted him from the 40-year minimum age requirement for election candidates. At the time of the ruling, the court was headed by Anwar Usman, the president’s brother-in-law.
Usman was ordered to recuse himself from any election-related cases before the courts after an ethics panel ruled he violated ethics rules.
The court is expected to issue its verdict on April 22.
Prabowo faces numerous accusations of human rights abuses dating back to his days in the army in the 1980s and 1990s, when he was rising to become a three-star general and later convicted of ordering the kidnapping of pro-democracy activists. Get fired.
Prabowo denies all allegations of wrongdoing.
This report contains information from The Associated Press and Reuters.