PRESIDENT DECLARED OFFICIAL WINNER, BUT OPPOSITION

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 JAKARTA 001240 SIPDIS DEPT FOR EAP, EAP/MTS, EAP/MLS, EAP/RSP NSC FOR J. BADER E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/27/2019 TAGS: PGOV KDEM ID SUBJECT: PRESIDENT DECLARED OFFICIAL WINNER, BUT OPPOSITION DOESN'T PLAY BALL REF: JAKARTA 1236 AND PREVIOUS Classified By: Pol/C Joseph L. Novak, reasons 1.4(b+d). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: The Indonesian Election Commission (KPU) officially announced on July 25 that President Yudhoyono was the winner of the presidential election held on July 8. The two losing candidates--former president Megawati and VP Kalla--plan to file lawsuits contesting the results which the Constitutional Court must settle by August 11. The challenges to the KPU's announcement seem weak--the election was largely free and fair--and no one expects any change in the official result. Overall, there is a sense that the opposition is basically just going through the motions. END SUMMARY. ELECTION COMMISSION DECLARES SBY WINNER ¶2. (SBU) It is Yudhoyono (whose nickname is SBY) in a landslide. In an official ceremony held on July 25 at its headquarters in Jakarta, the KPU officially announced that President Yudhoyono and Vice Presidential candidate Boediono (one name only) were the winners of Indonesia's July 8 presidential election. As reported earlier, Yudhoyono took 60.8 percent of the vote, Megawati was in second place with 26.79 percent of the vote, and Kalla far back with 12.4 percent. Vice President Kalla attended the ceremony and shook hands with President Yudhoyono. Megawati, protesting the event, did not attend the ceremony. OPPOSITION DOESN'T PLAY BALL ¶3. (SBU) Megawati's boycott of the ceremony follows her well-known pattern of refusing to concede defeat (twice before in her political career she has refused to concede to the winners in presidential races). Her team plans to file two charges with the Constitutional Court on July 28: (1) that the KPU's mismanagement of the voter registration list caused votes to "disappear," and, that the KPU's "poor" performance "ruined the election." Her team insists that according to their counts President Yudhoyono did not receive the 50 percent of the vote required to win in one round (and thus obviate a second round election that would have been held in September). ¶4. (C) Megawati's camp is pretty much accusing Yudhoyono's camp of fraud. A banner hung in front of her Indonesia Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) headquarters in Jakarta to commemorate the July 27, 1996, attack on the office during the Suharto era reads: "In 1997, SBY was promoted for his bloody engineering; in 2009 he got the mandate by engineering the election." (Note: Neutral observers do not in fact blame Yudhoyono for the 1996 events.) Nevertheless, in an interesting twist, Megawati reportedly met with SBY's Vice President-elect Boediono after the KPU announcement. Some analysts speculate that they discussed her contentions of electoral fraud. One contact told us, however, that--in meeting with Boediono--Megawati was "hedging her bets and wanted to keep some links to the Yudhoyono government." ¶5. (SBU) In contrast to Megawati's response, Vice President Kalla and his running mate Wiranto attended the July 25 ceremony, congratulating Yudhoyono and smiling for the cameras. Nonetheless, Kalla's campaign team also plans to file a lawsuit with the Constitutional Court over alleged electoral fraud related to the voter list. Like Megawati, Kalla refused to sign the document declaring SBY the winner. However, he clarified that he "accepted the official election results, (but) did not accept the election process." PRESIDENT YUDHOYONO DELAYS ACCEPTANCE SPEECH ¶6. (SBU) After the official announcement, congratulations from world leaders to President Yudhoyono continued to pour in. Despite a green light from the KPU, President Yudhoyono decided not to make a formal acceptance speech on July 25 after his competitors rejected the election results. He said he had would accept the results after the Constitutional Court formally rules on any electoral complaints. ¶7. (U) Briefly addressing the media, Yudhoyono carefully characterized his remarks as "a response to the announcement, not an acceptance speech." In his remarks, he thanked God that the elections had run "peacefully and democratically" despite reports of irregularities. He cautioned his audience JAKARTA 00001240 002 OF 002 that the irregularities could not be categorized as fraud, but should be investigated and corrected. He added that his camp had also found and reported violations. Moreover, his team had contemplated but rejected reporting their findings on vote discrepancies because the reports would not change the final vote tally. COURT MUST RULE BY AUGUST 11 ¶8. (C) By regulation, the Constitutional Court must settle any electoral lawsuits by August 11. The losing candidates have until 11:00 a.m. on July 28 to file appeals. To date, neither losing candidate has publicly presented credible evidence of their claim that the election was not free and fair. Some observers dismiss Megawati's move as another manifestation of her political rivalry with SBY, and note that she has not tried to mobilize her supporters to the streets and seems to be just going through the motions. ¶9. (C) In the meantime, while the losing candidates are not ready to accept defeat, the Indonesian public seems to have already accepted the official results and moved on. Although the court will not release its decision until August 11, analysts predict that it is unlikely to overturn the results. HUME