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Commission Confident Court Will Reject Challenge To Indonesian Presidential Election

At least two sides in the legal battle over the official results of the presidential election on Monday expressed the belief that the Constitutional Court would rule in their favor when it delivers its verdict on Wednesday.

Andi Nurpati, a member of the General Elections Commission (KPU), said she was confident the court would reject the complaints filed by losing presidential candidates Megawati Sukarnoputri and Jusuf Kalla.

Andi said the two losing candidates had failed to provide sufficient evidence to support their claims that the election had been fundamentally manipulated, and that tens of millions of votes were wrongly awarded to the official winner, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

“After seeing the evidence [the candidates] provided in court, the KPU is optimistic,” Andi was quoted as saying by Antara.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Megawati said she, too, was confident the court would rule in her favor. She said her legal team had submitted clear evidence to the court that the election was fundamentally flawed.

“I am really optimistic that what my legal team has shown can be used by the Constitutional Court as a basis in making the decision,” Megawati said.

The head of Megawati’s legal team, Arteria Dahlan, said the KPU had failed to sufficiently refute the evidence it had provided to the court, and did not present any witnesses to contradict their own version of events.

“After all the legal processes, we have come to the conclusion that there is n o reason for the Constitutional Court to reject our complaints,” he said.

Andi acknowledged that the Megawati camp had submitted evidence of millions of fictitious voters on the final voters list, whose votes they claimed were awarded to Yudhoyono, and that the Megawati camp had pointed to a number of votes they claimed were manipulated.

However, she said there was no evidence to support the claim that there were as many as 28 million fictitious voters on the voters list.

“We really don’t know which formula they used that resulted in such a number,” she said.

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