KPU to Declare President-Elect on May 28 Barring Dispute
Jakarta. The General Elections Commission, or KPU, said on Friday they will announce the names of Indonesia's newly elected president and his deputy on May 28, barring any dispute on the official election result set to be announced by the KPU on May 22.
"We will officially announce [the winner of the presidential election] three days after [May 22] at the earliest, if there is no dispute over the result," KPU chairman Arief Budiman said on Thursday.
On Friday, Arief said the latest the KPU can delay the official announcement will be until May 28.
However, if there is a dispute over the election result, the winners will be declared only after the dispute has been solved.
This is the same system applied in the legislative election, Arief said.
Indonesia held its presidential and legislative elections on the same day on April 17 – the biggest and most complex single-day elections in the world.
The presidential election was a two-way race involving incumbent president Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and his running mate, conservative Islamic cleric Ma’ruf Amin, and four-time challenger Prabowo Subianto, a former Army general, and young billionaire Sandiaga Uno.
Prabowo said on Tuesday he is likely to reject the official election result from the KPU, arguing that a "structured, systematic and massive" vote-rigging had plagued both the presidential and legislative elections.
His right-hand man, Fadli Zon, said the presidential candidate is also unlikely to bring election disputes to the Constitutional Court.
"In 2014, we followed that path and we saw that the Constitutional Court was useless for presidential election disputes," Fadli said.
As of Friday afternoon, KPU has counted almost 86 percent of the vote in the presidential election. Jokowi and Ma'ruf are leading with 56.01 percent.
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