Mahfud MD Alludes To The Potential For Fraud In The 2024 Election: The One Who Cheats Election Participants Is Not The Government

Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Mahfud MD alluded to the potential for fraud, which he said would occur in holding the 2024 General Election (Pemilu).

According to Mahfud when he was the keynote speaker of the seminar " Media and Political Literacy Ahead of the 2024 General Election: Mitigation of SARA Conflicts and Strengthening Citizens' Participation" at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University Jakarta, fraud did occur in the last five elections.

"Because we have held five elections in 1999, 2004, 2009, 2014, and 2019, we continue to cheat. But different brothers, who cheat now are election participants themselves, not the government," Mahfud said as quoted by ANTARA, Tuesday, May 23.

Mahfud emphasized that this is much different from when the New Order came to power, which has become a common secret that elections have often been regulated who the winner will be and what party will get how many votes.

"In the past, during the New Order era, it could not be denied that the government cheated on the people. Anyway, the winner must be Golkar, the election tomorrow that Golkar gets that much, PPP, PDI so much, has been regulated. That's not fake news, yes," he said.

Meanwhile, in the last five elections, Mahfud said that fraud occurred between the people and the people and was carried out by election participants.

Mahfud gave an example of the fraudulent mode that occurred, namely that election participants paid certain people at polling stations (TPS) to falsify the results of the vote which was submitted to the sub-district, sub-district and so on.

"It has been multiplied in such a way, there are still cases like that," he said.

Therefore, since 2003 the government has officially formed a Constitutional Court (MK), one of which is to resolve disputes over election results.

Mahfud, who is also the former chairman of the 2009-2013 Constitutional Court, emphasized that the judiciary must work openly and independently.

"Because if the decision is not open and independent, it could be a big political problem," he said.

Mahfud even admitted that he had ordered the General Election Commission (KPU) and the Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) to prepare for election fraud lawsuits.

"The election must have been marked by fraud, yesterday and tomorrow. Therefore, I told Pak Hasyim (Asy'ari, Chairman of the Indonesian KPU, ed.) and Bawaslu when they came to my office to be prepared for prosecution because the election was fraudulent," he said.

Mahfud also left a message so that all parties continue to strengthen political and media literacy, in order to maintain the 2024 General Election to be more democratic.

"Because the election is our stake in the future of this nation," he said.