Bawaslu Calls Prabowo's Umpatan After Debate Of Presidential Candidates Has The Opportunity To Enter Election Crimes

Chairman of Bawaslu Rahmat Bagja/DOK ANTARA/Rio Feisal)

Chairman of the Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) Rahmat Bagja responded to the swearing made by presidential candidate number 2, Prabowo Subianto after being mentioned by Anies Baswedan about land of 340,000 hectares in the third debate of the 2024 presidential candidate.

Bagja said Prabowo could be categorized as violating Article 280 of Law Number 7 of 2017 concerning Elections.

Article 280 paragraph (1) letter c states that executors, participants, and election campaign teams are prohibited from insulting someone, religion, ethnicity, race, groups, candidates, and/or other election participants.

If you violate this article, the penalty is a maximum imprisonment of 2 years and a maximum fine of Rp. 24 million.

"About insulting, right? Can it be charged (Article 280 of the Election Law)," said Bagja i of the Constitutional Court Building (MK), Central Jakarta, Wednesday, January 10.

So far, Bagja said that his party had not received reports of alleged election violations with reported Prabowo.

Likewise with the findings. The election supervisory committee (panwaslu) who attended the event where Prabowo gave the statement has not yet reported his findings.

"There has been no report on the findings of panwas in the field," said Bagja.

If someone later reports Prabowo, Bawaslu will conduct an initial examination to determine the context of Prabowo's statement and who he raises.

"We'll see first, what is the context, and targeting who. If the sanctions must be firm, targeting who. The examination must have the heart to target who and that is the part that cannot be separated," explained Bagja.

"But, it must be checked first, if it is really an intention, it will be a problem. We'll see first, we'll check first," he continued.

It is known that Prabowo Subianto's presidential candidate expressed his complaints. Prabowo talks about humans with thick faces. But Prabowo did not clearly mention the thick face humans in question.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have one who said that the extraordinary thing is that there are people whose faces are very thick, it's amazing that I can't answer sometimes because I'm so amazed that there are human beings like that," Prabowo said in the consolidation of Prabowo-Gibran volunteers at Gol Pemuda, Riau.

Prabowo previously responded strongly to Anies Baswedan who mentioned the land assets of 340,000 hectares in the presidential candidate debate. But Prabowo in his speech did not mention Anies Baswedan's name.

"Oh my God, O Allah, I only asked for one before you called me I wanted to see my people prosperous, that's all. Are there any of you who OFFEND how much land does this land have, is he smart or stupid?" said Prabowo.

Prabowo explained that the land he owns is a Right to Use Business (HGU). Therefore, Anies' remarks in the third debate, according to Prabowo, were only intended to make people hate him.

"He understands that there is no HGU, business rights, building rights, rights to use are land for your country, people's land, nation's land. Instead of being controlled by foreigners, Prabowo is better at managing when the government needs me to immediately hand over," said Prabowo.

"There's no need to be debated, really. You just show your carelessness," he continued.