Mega yet to concede defeat
Mega yet to concede defeat
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The incumbent president, Megawati Soekarnoputri, urged on Tuesday
the people of Indonesia to accept whoever officially won the
direct presidential election, but did not concede defeat to rival
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who swept up the majority of votes.
Megawati's camp is contesting the results announced by the
General Elections Commission, which confirmed on Monday that
Susilo won by a landslide with 60.68 percent of the vote.
"Whoever is elected must be accepted because the true victory
belongs to us all ... a victory that we should be proud of,"
Megawati said in her address to mark the commemoration of the
Indonesian Military's (TNI) 59th anniversary.
She struggled to hold back tears at the ceremony held at Halim
Perdanakusumah air base in East Jakarta in her first speech
following the General Elections Commission (KPU) announcement.
Meanwhile, congratulations poured in from various parts of the
world for president-elect Susilo, who also attended the TNI
anniversary. The former chief security minister in Megawati's
Cabinet sat in the second row among the guests along with another
rival in the presidential race, Gen. (ret) Wiranto, and other
former TNI chiefs.
In Susilo's first official statement later in the day
following the announcement of the election result, he said, "I am
very impressed with these spontaneous greetings coming from my
counterparts, which shows us that the general election in
Indonesia came under the international spotlight.
"All the well-wishers congratulated me for the success of the
elections and also expressed great expectations for the
developing of bilateral relations between our country and theirs.
"Such attention has given me and my administration -- God
willing, it will start working on Oct. 20 -- to enhance
cooperation with them for the sake of our national interests,"
Susilo stated.
At the air base, Megawati also said that the pairs of
candidates must be equally ready to lose as they were to win.
"We have to show the world that our nation is a great nation
and one of noble ethics. We may have different choices, but we
have a single goal ... to be a respected country," she said.
A confidant of Susilo, Maj. Gen. (ret) Djali Jusuf, said
Susilo would likely deliver his acceptance speech after the
Constitutional Court completed hearing complaints from the losing
candidate later this week.
The court has given the two camps three days to file election
complaints and will hear cases only if the outcome is likely to
significantly affect the final vote result.
However, the Megawati camp's plan to bring the election result
to court had yet to materialize on Wednesday. Megawati won only
in the provinces of Bali, East Nusa Tenggara and Maluku out of
the country's 32 provinces.
The head of Megawati's legal team, Gayus Lumbun, said his team
was mulling over whether to challenge the election result. "We
are still gathering evidence to support our claim," he said. A
colleague in the legal team said a decision may be made on
Wednesday after they meet with Megawati.
Gayus said that thus far his team had found that alleged vote
rigging had occurred in polling stations in the vicinity of
Susilo's private residence in Cikeas, Bogor regency.
Another representative of the Megawati-Hasyim Muzadi campaign
team had also cited among others findings that there were more
than the legal maximum of 300 voters at a number of polling
stations in 12 provinces.
In a plenary meeting held by the General Elections Commission
to announce the election result, Megawati's team declined to sign
the official result for West Java province.