JAKARTA: The Jakarta branch of the General Elections Commission (KPU Jakarta) declared Pramono Anung as the winning candidate on Sunday (Dec 8) afternoon, revealing that the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician and his running mate Rano Karno won more than half of the vote to clinch the city’s gubernatorial election on Nov 27 in a single round.
The KPU’s final tally, presented at a public vote tabulation and certification meeting involving representatives from all campaign teams as well as the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu), shows that Pramono garnered 2.18 million votes, or 50.07 per cent, defeating key rival Ridwan Kamil of the pro-government Onward Indonesia Coalition (KIM) as well as independent candidate Dharma Pongrekun in the three-horse race.
Former West Java governor Ridwan and his running mate Suswono from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) gained 1.71 million votes, or 39.4 per cent, while Dharma and his running mate Kun Wardana earned 459,230 votes, or 10.53 per cent.
The PDI-P has been cast as the de facto opposition party, as it is the only political party in the House of Representatives that has not joined the KIM’s ranks.
A closer look at the tabulation results shows that Pramono secured more votes than his rivals in all five Jakarta mayoralties as well as the Thousand Islands, the capital’s only regency, which edged him over the 50 per cent threshold by more than 2,900 votes.
Commenting on the results of the gubernatorial election, Pramono-Rano campaign manager Lies Hartono, popularly known as “Cak Lontong”, hailed it as a “victory for the people of Jakarta”.
“We welcome [this result]. This is a victory for the people of Jakarta, a victory for all of us," Lies said at a press conference on Sunday.
Lies also applauded the work of the KPU Jakarta and election workers for their consistency throughout the multitiered vote counting process lasting several days.
Even as the city’s election body was making its announcement, Ramdan Alamsyah of the Ridwan-Suswono camp aired the KIM candidates’ disappointment over the historically low turnout, which he blamed on the local election body for failing to distribute invitations to voters.
KPU data show a total of 8.21 million registered voters for this year’s Jakarta race, but only 4.72 million cast a ballot, for a voter turnout of just 57.5 per cent.
Ramdan also said Ridwan’s campaign team found indication of ballot tampering by election workers at a polling station in East Jakarta, and suspected there could be more instances of election fraud that went unnoticed.
“In light of everything that happened [...] we will use our right to file [a election dispute] with the Constitutional Court in hope of finding justice,” Ramdan said, before storming out of the tabulation meeting along with all other representatives of the Ridwan-Suswono campaign team.
Anthony James Harahap, spokesman for the Dharma-Kun pair at the meeting, also mentioned ballot tampering and low voter turnout when asked to present any objections to the KPU certifying the final tally.
“We consider the legitimacy of today’s [election results] to be unrepresentative of the public as a whole,” Anthony said.
Similarly, all representatives of the Dharma-Kun camp left the meeting during a 20-minute recess, leaving behind only Pramono-Rano’s representatives present to sign the KPU’s documents to certify the final results.
While the Ridwan-Suswono camp has signaled its plan to contest the results of the 2024 Jakarta gubernatorial election at the Constitutional Court, it is unknown whether the Dharma-Kun camp will follow suit.
Commenting on the two losing camps’ objections, KPU Jakarta commissioner Dody Wijaya said 90 per cent of all election invitations had reached their intended recipients and doubled down on the validity of the gubernatorial race’s final tally, regardless of the low voter turnout.
As for the alleged election fraud, Dody said district-level election workers had tallied every ballot, and that the Bawaslu’s Jakarta branch did not issue a recommendation for a revote at those polling stations under question.
“We will wait for [each camp to exercise] their right to file a dispute at the court while we make [our own] preparations,” Dody said.
Although the final tally shows that the Pramono-Rano pair won the majority vote to claim victory in a single round, KPU Jakarta must wait for the Constitutional Court to settle any election disputes before it can either formally declare the pair as Jakarta’s new leaders or announce a runoff election.
On Sunday evening, the Ridwan-Suswono camp told a press conference it had begun assembling a legal team to file a challenge on their behalf.
Losing candidates have from Dec 9 to 11, or three days after the announcement of official election results, to file an election dispute with the Constitutional Court. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
