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Losing presidential candidates Megawati Sukarnoputri and Jusuf Kalla on Thursday presented at least 10 witnesses to the Constitutional Court to support their claims that the results of last month’s presidential election were a sham.

Whether it is enough to persuade the court to overturn President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s landslide re-election victory remains to be seen. The hearing into the election disputes is scheduled to continue today.

On Thursday, the Megawati and Kalla camps presented witnesses from across the country to back their claims that the final voters list had been riddled with problems.

“It is clear that the final voters list is a total mess,” said Constitutional Court Chief Mahfud MD. “We don’t need to repeat and question that fact over and over again. The final voters list is clearly wrong; we only need to have material evidence.”

Both Megawati and Kalla claim that 25 million to 28 million ghost voters cast ballots for Yudhoyono, enabling him to secure 60.8 percent of the vote and avoid a second-round poll. The two candidates have called on the court to increase their respective vote tallies, enabling them to compete in a runoff election.

A witness from North Sumatra showed a video of a child at a polling station who was about to cast a vote. The witness also said 20 children were reported to have voted at one polling station in Central Tapanuli district.

A Central Tapanuli village chief, Beni Batubara, also said a person there had been tried in court and convicted for voting for Yudhoyono 51 times.

Chairul Anwar, a witness for Megawati from Bengkulu, said that in Kepahyang district, 99 percent of voters had no citizen registration numbers, and the remainder all had the same number. KPU officials here and in Kepahyang said voters there had no registration numbers because it was a newly established district. However, Chairul showed his identity card from Kepahyangan that included a registration number.

“Up till now, we have been harshly attacked and we have remained silent about it,” KPU Chairman Abdul Hafiz Anshary said after the hearing. “But once this is over, we will sue whoever blamed us without any proof.”

Hafiz singled out the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), which had claimed that millions of eligible voters were left off the final voters list.