JAKARTA. The elected governor and deputy governor of East Java province, Soekarwo and Saifullah Yusuf, coolly received a discourse initiated by former Constitutional Court chief justice Akil Mochtar, claiming that the true winner of the East Java gubernatorial elections was the Khofifah Indar Parawansa-Herman Sumawiredja ticket.

 “Why should a problem be made out of the East Java gubernatorial elections again? The elections have ended; the Constitutional Court has rejected Khofifah-Herman’s suits. We don’t think much about the problems,” Trimoelja D.Soerjadi, lawyer for the Soekarwo-Saifullah ticket, said on Sunday, as quoted by Antara news agency.

He said the court’s decision was right because the claims brought up by Khofifah-Herman against the elected East Java governor and deputy governor could have been easily refused.

 “Just look at the minutes of the hearing session. Could you find any strong claim that we weren’t able to respond to properly?” asked Trimoelja.

He said East Java’s people had felt how the provincial election could run smoothly and peacefully. The East Java chapter of the General Elections Commission (KPU) and Election Supervisory Committee (Bawaslu) had even declared that the elections were relatively free from significant incidents.

On the contrary, Trimoelja questioned Akil’s claims that it was Khofifah-Herman who won the election disputes although there was a vote difference of 1.7 million between the two candidate pairs and no evidence of massive, structured and systematic fraud had been found.

 “I’m still curious, based on what reason Akil Mochtar would say that the Khofifah-Herman ticket was the true winner of the East Java elections. This is what we are now looking into. We want to know what was actually behind his statements,” said Trimoelja.

Similarly, a political expert from the University of Airlangga, Haryadi, said Akil’s statement had a strong political nuance.

 “Although Akil said that Khofifah-Herman was the true winner of the elections, it doesn’t mean that we must believe his statements are true,” said Haryadi.

He added Akil should have evidence to prove the accuracy of his claims on the massive, structured, and systematic fraud allegedly perpetrated by incumbent candidates Soekarwo-Saifullah. (ebf)

Editor: Asnil Amri