Opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri yesterday rejected Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s landslide re-election win and will challenge the results in court, a spokesman said.
Megawati’s campaign will lodge a challenge to the results of the July 8 poll with the Constitutional Court, alleging widespread irregularities including millions of people left off voter rolls, lawmaker Gayus Lumbuun said.
“Because there are still unresolved legal issues, we are rejecting the presidential election results from the KPU [election commission],” said Gayus Lumbuun, from Megawati’s Democratic Party of Struggle.
PHOTO: AFP
Official results announced by the commission yesterday gave the liberal ex-general Yudhoyono 60.8 percent of the vote, far ahead of ex-president Megawati, with 26.8 percent, and Vice President Jusuf Kalla, with 12.4 percent.
The Megawati campaign boycotted the official announcement of the results at the election commission office.
Kalla’s campaign will also launch a Constitutional Court appeal over voter list irregularities, but has not yet decided whether to accept or reject the results, campaign spokesman Indra Piliang said.
‘IRREGULARITIES’
“We have accepted the draft results signed by the KPU members ... [but] because we found irregularities in the voter list we’ll file a legal challenge to the Constitutional Court,” he said. “According to the law, there have to be objective results before the declaration of the president and vice president-elect.”
Yudhoyono denied there had been widespread fraud in the election but said opposing candidates had the right to launch “peaceful” challenges to the results.
“Our system and laws of course allow for those sides who still want to protest and file complaints,” Yudhoyono said in a press conference broadcast on national TV.
“In the public arena, voting issues of irregularities have emerged ... irregularities in elections don’t always mean fraud. Nonetheless they have to be corrected, repaired and settled,” he said.
The 59-year-old Yudhoyono, who defeated Megawati in Indonesia’s first direct presidential election in 2004 on an anti-corruption platform, is credited with ensuring stability and economic growth.
Kalla’s Golkar Party, the political vehicle of late dictator Suharto, has indicated it could join a Yudhoyono-led government, while Megawati has maintained bitter opposition to the president.
Paramilitary police provided heavy security outside the election commission office, the road to which was blocked off by razor wire and armored vehicles.
ATTACKS
A spokesman for the election commission said the security measures were to prevent a repeat of bomb attacks on luxury Jakarta hotels on July 17, which killed seven people plus two suicide bombers.
Yudhoyono has come under fire for appearing to blame the attacks on political rivals aiming to overturn the election results, although police say the most likely perpetrator was a radical splinter faction of the Jemaah Islamiyah militant network.
The bombings, the first major attack in Indonesia since 2005, have broken years of quiet associated with Yudhoyono’s rule but are seen as not likely to undermine forecasts of robust economic growth.
People with missing teeth might be able to grow new ones, said Japanese dentists, who are testing a pioneering drug they hope will offer an alternative to dentures and implants. Unlike reptiles and fish, which usually replace their fangs on a regular basis, it is widely accepted that humans and most other mammals only grow two sets of teeth. However, hidden underneath our gums are the dormant buds of a third generation, said Katsu Takahashi, head of oral surgery at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital in Osaka, Japan. His team launched clinical trials at Kyoto University Hospital in October, administering an experimental
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
NOTORIOUS JAIL: Even from a distance, prisoners maimed by torture, weakened by illness and emaciated by hunger, could be distinguished Armed men broke the bolts on the cell and the prisoners crept out: haggard, bewildered and scarcely believing that their years of torment in Syria’s most brutal jail were over. “What has happened?” asked one prisoner after another. “You are free, come out. It is over,” cried the voice of a man filming them on his telephone. “Bashar has gone. We have crushed him.” The dramatic liberation of Saydnaya prison came hours after rebels took the nearby capital, Damascus, having sent former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad fleeing after more than 13 years of civil war. In the video, dozens of
ROYAL TARGET: After Prince Andrew lost much of his income due to his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, he became vulnerable to foreign agents, an author said British lawmakers failed to act on advice to tighten security laws that could have prevented an alleged Chinese spy from targeting Britain’s Prince Andrew, a former attorney general has said. Dominic Grieve, a former lawmaker who chaired the British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) until 2019, said ministers were advised five years ago to introduce laws to criminalize foreign agents, but failed to do so. Similar laws exist in the US and Australia. “We remain without an important weapon in our armory,” Grieve said. “We asked for [this law] in the context of the Russia inquiry report” — which accused the government
RSS