Presidential Election: Dramatic Ending on The Election.

INDONESIA - In Brief 22 Jul 2014 by Cyrillus Harinowo

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The Indonesian Presidential Election was finally completed with the election of Joko (Jokowi) Widodo and Jusuf Kalla as President and Vice President Elect of 2014 – 2019. That decision was announced by the Indonesian Election Commission on the July 22, 2014 evening in Jakarta. Jokowi – JK, as the couple was commonly known, won the election with total votes of 70,997,833 or 53.15% of the votes. On the other hand Prabowo - Hatta Rajasa received the total votes of 62,576,444 or 46.85%. The difference of over 8.4 million votes or 6% actually will prevent any efforts of contesting the decision through the Constitutional Court. Because if the court should decide there is any frauds on parts of the election, the frauds should be massive in order to overturn the decision. Therefore the decision by the Election Commission can be considered final regardless of what will be done by Prabowo. The Presidential Election itself was marred by the withdrawal of Prabowo at the end of the process of the Recapitulation of the votes. This ungentlemanly act was seen as a face saving since Prabowo is too arrogant to concede a defeat. Nevertheless, this dramatic end did not prevent the Election Commission to continue the counting and finally made the decision to announce the President and the Vice President Elect. All this process was done under a serious threat of massive demonstration by the supporters of Prabowo. Police has received a request to have 20 demonstration on the afternoon of July 22, 2014. However, until the President and the Vice President Elect were announced, situation remained calm. With this process, Indonesia entered a new chapter in the nurturing of the democratic system....