YUDHOYONO AND MEGAWATI ENTER RUN-OFF; WIRANTO AND

C O N F I D E N T I A L JAKARTA 007036 E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/27/2014 TAGS: PGOV KJUS KDEM ID SUBJECT: YUDHOYONO AND MEGAWATI ENTER RUN-OFF; WIRANTO AND AMIEN TO CHALLENGE RESULTS REF: A. JAKARTA 69933 (WIRANTO RUMORED TO LEAD) ¶B. JAKARTA 6375 (YUDHOYONO LEADS) Classified By: POLITICAL OFFICER DAVID R. GREENBERG, REASON 1.4 (D) SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C) The Indonesian Electoral Commission (KPU) on July 26 certified final results from the first round Presidential election, placing Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and President Megawati Soekarnoputri into the September runoff election. An advisor to retired General Wiranto told us that Wiranto plans a Constitutional Court challenge, based on evidence that he received more votes than Megawati. This advisor stressed that Wiranto insists on a peaceful process to challenge the election result, implying that some around him proposed protests in the streets. Amien Rais's team also intends to challenge the election result, although with less conviction that their candidate deserves to have qualified for the runoff. Amien's team will also claim Police officials acted in a partisan manner. We doubt that errors in the vote count were material, and we do not sense widespread public rejection of these results. End Summary. FINAL VOTE COUNT -------------- ¶2. (U) The KPU on July 26 certified the final results of the July 5 first round presidential election as follows: QUICK COUNT CANDIDATE VOTES PERCENT PROJECTION -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- Yudhoyono 39,838,184 33.57 33.15 Megawati 31,569,104 26.60 26.02 Wiranto 26,286,788 22.15 23.34 Amien 17,392,931 14.66 14.42 Haz 3,569,861 3.01 3.29 Total 118,656,868 (Note: With 156,102,364 registered voters and 2,636,976 invalid votes cast, this data indicates voter turnout of 77.7 percent, down from the 84.1 percent turnout for the legislative election. End Note.) TIMETABLE TO CHALLENGE THE RESULTS -------------- ¶3. (U) The election law provides that candidates have three days from the announcement of the final results to submit objections to the Constitutional Court. The Court must then rule on those objections within 14 days. Thus, July 29 marks the filing deadline, and August 12 represents the deadline for the Court's decision on objections submitted on the last day. WIRANTO'S CAMP PLANS CHALLENGE -------------- ¶4. (C) An expatriate advisor to Wiranto told us on July 27 that Wiranto's team definitely would file an objection with the Constitutional Court. He asserted optimistically that the team had "an enormous amount of evidence" that Wiranto had lost a decisive number of legitimate votes. When asked about the July 23 rumor that Wiranto led the manual vote count by 0.7 percent (ref A),the advisor confirmed that the rumored lead tracked with the Wiranto team's data; he implied there was more to the story of the rumor that he could not disclose. ¶5. (C) The advisor claimed that the clear majority of "errors" in the vote count that disadvantaged Wiranto was deliberate. He said Wiranto's team had consulted with a failed bidder on the KPU's computer system tender and had determined a number of vulnerabilities in the system. He believed the electronic vote counting system was manipulated, and the manual counts were then adjusted to track with the desired result. He clearly implied -- but did not explicitly state -- that Megawati's team committed the fraud. ¶6. (C) Wiranto's team will soon begin a public relations campaign to accompany its court challenge, according to the same advisor. Some loyal Wiranto supporters felt cheated and extremely angry. In a July 27 meeting, Wiranto had twice stressed that any challenges to the election result had to occur peacefully. The advisor strongly implied that others around Wiranto counseled street protests, demonstrations, and similar activities. The advisor worried that these actions would receive international coverage and project an image of instability in Indonesia. ¶7. (C) Golkar leaders, however, continue to desert Wiranto. On July 26, Ferry Baldan, the Vice Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Legal Affairs (also the Vice Chairman of the Special Committee that drafted the election laws),spoke out publicly against Wiranto's earlier call for a manual recount, and expressed his support for the KPU's controversial ruling on double-punched ballots. He did not address possible Constitutional Court challenges, however. AMIEN'S CAMP ALSO TO CHALLENGE RESULTS -------------- ¶8. (C) National Mandate Party (PAN) Deputy Secretary General Alvin Lie told us on July 27 that Amien Rais's team also planned to file a challenge with the Constitutional Court. Alvin was not confident, however, that Amien could show that rectifying errors in the count would change the runoff participants. However, Alvin said many witnesses, with data from voting stations throughout the country, could demonstrate significant errors in the vote count. Speaking from memory, Alvin claimed that, when approximately 85 million votes had been tabulated, Amien, Megawati, and Wiranto each had won around 20 percent of the vote. Alvin bitterly criticized the KPU as dishonest, inaccurate, and arrogant. ¶9. (C) Alvin also said that Amien's team would file a complaint in an administrative court based on illegal Police involvement in campaign activities. (Note: Since July 25, the local press has reported on an anonymously sourced video showing the Regional Police Commander of Banyumas regency, Central Java, meeting prior to July 5 with active and retired police officers. The Commander urged support for Megawati in the presidential race. End Note.) COMMENT -------------- ¶10. (C) Constitutional Court proceedings related to Indonesia's legislative election demonstrated that errors in the vote count can occur, and can be rectified. However, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) quick count gives us a degree of confidence that errors in the July 5 vote count were not material. It would require a Herculean effort to document, based on witness observations, that over 2.5 million votes in Megawati's column actually were cast for Wiranto. The media and general public have not expressed the sort of discontent that we hear from the losing candidates' camps. We doubt that Wiranto's upcoming challenge will resonate strongly with the Indonesian electorate. BOYCE