Indonesian Ulema Council says no "people power" movement

It is regrettable if there is a party that does not recognize the existence of the MK. Presidential and legislative candidates must take action in line with the laws if they find alleged fraud with regard to the elections

The Indonesian Ulema (Islamic Scholar) Council (MUI) has urged the country's Muslims not to start a "people power" movement and suggested that they, instead, file a legal suit with the Constitutional Court (MK) if they discover alleged fraud during the 2019 general elections.

For the sake of the unity and integrity of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI), the community must not join the "people power" movement, KH Abdullah Jaidi, MUI's chairman in charge of education and regeneration, said here on Friday.

"The community should not be provoked to join the people power movement because it could threaten the sovereignty and integrity of NKRI," he told the press.

The MK has the authority to deal with conflicts arising from the general elections and the country's Muslims must abide by the existing law, he said.

It will take a long time to heal a divided nation, he noted.

MUI Deputy Chairman Zainut Tauhid Saadi said any alleged fraud should be reported to the MK, which will certainly deal with it.

"It is regrettable if there is a party that does not recognize the existence of the MK. Presidential and legislative candidates must take action in line with the laws if they find alleged fraud with regard to the elections," he said.

Indonesia organized simultaneous legislative and presidential elections on April 17, 2019, believed to be the world's largest and most complex single-day elections. The voter turnout was reportedly some 80 percent of the over 192 million eligible voters.

According to data entries on the General Election Commission (KPU)'s Vote Count Information System (Situng) on Friday, Joko Widodo (Jokowi)-Ma'ruf bagged 74,499,221 or 55.91 percent and Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Uno got 58,753,681 or 44.09 percent.

The Prabowo Subianto team has repeatedly reported data inconsistencies and alleged fraud to KPU and the Election Supervisory Board (Bawaslu) over the elections.

The KPU, however, attributed these to human error and promised to correct them.

Subianto has asked for a prompt forensic audit of the KPU Information Technology owing to several inconsistencies in the vote data entry published in the commission's vote-count information system (Situng).

He said "human order" rather than "human error" was the reason behind the inconsistencies in the vote data entry in KPU's Situng.

On May 14, the Prabowo-Sandi pair had announced their disapproval over the KPU's vote count results, which they claimed were fraudulent.

"We are still harboring high hopes that the KPU will set matters straight, but my stand is clear. I will not accept fraudulent results. We reject this injustice and dishonesty in the implementation of the election," presidential candidate Subianto remarked during his presentation titled "Revealing the Facts on Election Fraud 2019" delivered at the Grand Sahid Jaya Hotel on Tuesday (May 14).

This year's elections also saw a large number of deaths. According to data of the KPU, 486 polling station attendants were reported dead and 4,849 others fell ill after polling day. In addition to this, deaths were also reported among 92 Bawaslu personnel, 22 police officers and three military officers. Some reports attributed most of the deaths to various illnesses, coupled with fatigue.