JAKARTA, Indonesia
Indonesia's Constitutional Court has begun hearing Prabowo Subianto's challenge to last month's presidential election result, in which he claims that rival candidate Joko "Jokowi" Widodo only appeared triumphant after massive electoral fraud.
Subianto had initially filed a complaint to the court last month after instructing his team to walk out from the commission building on July 9 as the result was being announced.
"We reject the 2014 presidential election, which is illegitimate, and therefore we withdraw from the ongoing process," he had said.
On Wednesday, Subianto's lawsuit was presented to nine tribunal judges in the Jakarta court building, in which he claimed the Election Commission's "structural, systematic and massive fraud" had stopped him from winning the presidency of the world's most populous Muslim nation.
"We do not want to accept the mandate over cheating," the lawsuit added.
Followers of the former military general had earlier gathered in front of the Election Commission Office in Surabaya, angry and disappointed that they had been banned from approaching the court.
Lawyer Makdir Ismail is reported to have told the court that the violations were "structured, systematic and massive," with as many as 24.1 million votes from more than 52,000 polling stations "troubled."
Court documents from Subianto's team questioned the validity of 2.7 million votes. They issued their version of the results that put Jokowi on 66.44 million votes, or 49.74 percent, and claimed that Subianto was victorious with more than 67.14 million, or 50.25 percent.
The General Elections Commission announced July 9 that Jokowi had 70.99 million votes or 53.15 percent, and Subianto had 62.57 million votes or 46.85 percent.
Subianto's lawyer argued that poll officials -- themselves -- had inflated Widodo's results.
In closing, Justice of the Court Aswanto -- many Indonesians have only one name -- gave Subianto's legal team until Thursday to clarify some "ambiguous" words and sentences in the suit.
The hearing will continue Friday, when Widodo's legal team and the commission will be invited to give their responses to the suit.
It will last for two weeks and finish August 21, the result being relayed August 22.
Subianto -- reported to model himself on the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk -- is a businessman and heavily decorated lieutenant general, having headed the country's oppressive special forces under General Suharto, while Jokowi -- who resigned his post as mayor of Indonesia's capital city Jakarta to run for president -- is a one time little-known furniture retailer, whose stock began to rise in 2005 when he became the mayor of the central Javanese city of Solo.
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