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Prabowo refuses to concede defeat in Indonesian election

The 2019 Indonesian general election which has so far been marred with challenges and tragedies, is yet to be concluded.

Seven rioters were killed and hundreds injured in riot incidents after the results of the presidential election were announced on Tuesday, with incumbent President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) proclaimed as the winner.

Previously, more than 500 election staff were reported to have died due to 'exhaustion' and heart attacks while carrying out their duties.

A total of 1.7 million staff were tasked with manning the 'biggest one-day election' in the world, involving over 2,000 districts and municipalities across challenging geographical locations.

Now, presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto is challenging the result, refusing to concede defeat to his bitter rival.

Prabowo, through his lawyer, Bambang Widjojanto, filed a petition challenging the election result at the Constitutional Court of Indonesia at 10.43pm, just over an hour before the deadline at midnight.

The Election Commission (EC) had set 72 hours following the announcement of the result on Tuesday for petitions to be filed.

The trial is scheduled to begin on June 14, and a decision expected on June 28, 2019.

Prabowo alleges fraud

Observers and analysts have opined that the court's decision should be deemed final and respected by all parties, for the sake of political stability in Indonesia.

Prabowo, who had previously claimed that money politics and fraud were involved to give Jokowi the win, will have to prove his allegations in court.

"The majority of 16.95 million votes is huge, it's difficult to say there has been a conspiracy by certain individuals to carry out such fraud," said a political observer.

At 1.46am on Tuesday, the EC announced that Jokowi, 57, and vice-presidential candidate Ma'ruf Amin, 76, had won the election with 85,607,362 votes, while Prabowo, 67, and his running mate Sandiaga Uno, 49, garnered 68,650,239 votes.

"There are 813,350 polling centres, with an average of 200 voters each.

"If there has been fraud, team Jokowi would have had to engineer a huge and well-planned conspiracy to gain the 16.95 million vote majority," said another.

- Bernama

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