2019 Presidential Election Memory: Premature Declaration Of Prabowo Subianto And Election Harmony In Indonesia

Prabowo Subianto performed prostration and gratitude after a press conference on premature victory claims in the 219 presidential election on Jl. Kertanegara 4, South Jakarta, Wednesday (17/4/2019). (Between/Galih Pradipta).

JAKARTA The 2019 presidential election will always be remembered for one funny thing, it can even be called ridiculous, namely the declaration of victory by Prabowo Subianto, who was competing against Joko Widodo at that time. Prabowo was recorded three times as the winner, each on April 17, April 18 and April 22.

Prabowo's claim to victory was based on three vote count benchmarks, namely the quick count, exit poll, and real count. The three were carried out by the internal team of the Presidential Candidate carried out by the Gerindra Party. From the results of the calculation, Prabowo then declared himself the elected president.

"I will and have become president of all Indonesian people," Prabowo said at the headquarters of his winning team, Jl. Kertanegara 4, Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta on Wednesday night, April 17, 2019.

Prabowo is orated on a red carpeted stage, which is installed in the yard of his parents' home, Soemitro Djojohadikusumo. Prabowo added that his belief was based on the results of the calculation of the real count by his team, in 320 polling stations (TPS). In his claim, he mentioned a fantastic winning figure, 62 percent!

The people around Prabowo who he called statisticians managed to convince him as the winner of the 2019 presidential election.

"That number will not change much. The most up and down is only one percent," said Prabowo, who was paired with Sandiaga Uno at the time, as quoted by Tempo.

On the other hand, survey institutions actually stated that victory was on Joko Widodo-Ma'ruf Amin's side. Prabowo Subianto denied the result, and said that it was just a pysawa, a war of nerves launched by the opposing camp.

"This is just to bring down the morale of our supporters and accept the fact that they won," said Prabowo, who also accused the media of exaggerated the news of Jokowi-Ma'ruf's victory.

Prabowo also said that he would launch a people power, by deploying a million people to demonstrate in front of the State Palace. Politicians Rizal Ramli, Amien Rais (PAN), Yusuf Muhammad Martak (Chairman of the GNPF Ulama), Salim Segaf Al Jufri (PKS), and Bachtiar Natsir (Former Chairman of the GNPF Ulama/National Movement for the Fatwa Ulama Guard) were several names who contributed to Prabowo's intentions.

The people power intention failed. The final result of the presidential election set by the General Election Commission (KPU) shows that the Joko Widodo-Ma'ruf Amin pair won with 84,654,894 votes, or 55.32 percent. Meanwhile, Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Uno won 68,359,086 votes, or 44.68 percent.

A study institute from Australia, Lowy Institute, said that the 2019 Election in Indonesia is the most complicated in the world. Not only because of its large scale, but also because it was held in just one day.

At that time there were 193 million voters, and this figure is the largest in the world in direct presidential election matters. Compared to the 2014 election, that number jumped by 2.4 million people.

The election was held at 809,500 polling stations, which means each polling station must serve 200-300 people on voting day. There are five elections that must be held simultaneously, namely the presidential election, DPR, DPD, Provincial DPRD, and Regency/City DPRD.

The Lowy Institute compared the 2019 elections in Indonesia to India, which was also held in April. India's elections were followed by far more voters, reaching 930 million people. It's just that elections in India have been held for more than a month, starting April 11, May 19.

The holding of the Indian elections also alternately in 28 states and 8 regions of unity. If in Indonesia in the 2019 election 16 parties were followed, in India 450 parties! The cost of the 2019 elections in Indonesia reached IDR 24.8 trillion, while India was four times greater.

There are six million supervisory officers and implementers of the 2019 Election in Indonesia, compared to India, which reached 10 million officers. One thing that is in common is that the 2019 elections in Indonesia and India are held manually. In contrast to elections in several other countries which are held through e-voting, in Indonesia and India still use nails as a tool for voting.

Although it still seems backward, the Lowy Institute praised that elections in Indonesia and India were able to be held efficiently. In fact, it is known that the synergy of the bureaucracy in the two countries is still weak, but is able to resolve a very complicated and complex democratic party.