Jakarta, July 10: Indonesian opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri’s campaign team refused to concede defeat on Friday to an apparent landslide election win by incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
The Megawati camp alleges widespread fraud in the Wednesday vote, including millions of fake voters, after a provisional official count giving Yudhoyono 61.88 percent of the vote to Megawati’s 28.57 percent.
“It seems that SBY has the compelling urge to be congratulated,” Megawati campaign spokesman Aria Bima said, referring to the President by his nickname.
“We’re reluctant to congratulate SBY because we’re still waiting for the final official results from the electoral commission.”
Megawati’s running mate and ex-special forces chief Prabowo Subianto has said the campaign was preparing legal action over alleged fraud, while Megawati has denounced the poll as an exercise in “pseudo-democracy”.
“We’re still counting an accumulation of violations regarding voters being registered twice, children on the electoral rolls and vote counting irregularities. We’ll report this to the supervisory body,” Bima said.
Despite the allegations, most political analysts say the election was largely free and fair and that Yudhoyono’s apparent victory was so big as to make any voter list irregularities irrelevant.
–Agencies