Prabowo Subianto launches legal challenge to Joko Widodo's win in Indonesia's presidential election
Ex-general defeated in presidential election alleges widespread fraud
The ex-general who lost Indonesia's presidential election to Jakarta governor Joko Widodo mounted a legal challenge to the result yesterday, alleging widespread electoral fraud and irregularities in vote counting.
Prabowo Subianto claims that massive fraud tipped the scales in Widodo's favour, but his challenge is directed at the election commission, in part for failing to investigate all allegations of cheating, said a spokesman.
"We are now taking the legal path, the constitutional path," Prabowo told hundreds of supporters on the street outside the court. "We have almost one million documents and 52,000 witnesses," he said.
Prabowo has refused to concede defeat despite the election commission's declaration on Tuesday that Widodo won the presidency with 53 per cent of the vote in the world's third-biggest democracy.
He is seeking a repeal of the commission's results and declaration of Widodo as president, Prabowo's coalition spokesman Tantowi Yahya told local media.
The former general, who has admitted to ordering the abduction of activists before the Suharto dictatorship fell in 1998, angrily announced his withdrawal from the election on Tuesday, only to say on Wednesday that he would file an appeal.