Indonesia’s electoral integrity under scrutiny as Prabowo Subianto set to be named president

The Election Commission’s credibility has come under scrutiny after it last week stopped displaying the results of its ongoing official vote tally online, prompting parties supporting Prabowo’s rivals to cry foul play, and activists and watchdog groups to demand greater transparency into the vote tabulation process.

This included the nomination of Widodo’s son Gibran Rakabuming Raka as Prabowo’s running mate and accusations that state officials distributed government welfare resources to win votes for Prabowo.

“There is a whole ongoing debate about all the accusations of state intervention and Jokowi’s political manoeuvring behind the scenes, that has already hurt the credibility of this election,” said Yoes Kenawas, a research fellow at Atma Jaya Catholic University in Jakarta.

According to the unofficial quick-count results on election day, Prabowo earned nearly 60 per cent of the vote, which would give him a significant margin of victory over his two rivals, former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan and former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo.

Anies told reporters on Wednesday that he planned to file a case at the Constitutional Court to contest the results of the election, citing a lack of state neutrality.

“When we are talking about free and fair elections this also means that the state takes a neutral position toward any contestants and organises the election in a neutral way. That has been absent,” he said, declining to provide further details about the case.

Meanwhile, a coalition of civil society groups over the weekend released a statement urging political parties supporting Ganjar and Anies to push for a legislative inquiry on what they described as “strong indications” of fraud in the lead-up to the election.

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