Election challenges could test Prabowo's presidency: Analysts

New leadership has to work on uniting country, preventing fragmented govt

- Hariz Baharudin

Challenges against the results of Indonesia's Feb 14 presidential polls will dominate headlines in the coming days, but they are unlikely to stand in the way of Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto's ascension to the presidential office come October.

Still, claims of election fraud from the losing candidates could chip away at the legitimacy of Mr Prabowo's future administration, and political observers have said that Indonesia's new leaders will have to work on bringing the country together and preventing a fragmented government.

Hours after official election results released late on March 20 showed a clear victory for Mr Prabowo, who won almost 60 per cent of the vote, news broke of how the legal team of losing candidate Anies Baswedan would be pushing for an election re-run.

The team of Mr Anies, a former Jakarta governor who won 25 per cent of the vote, filed the case on March 21. They called on the Constitutional Court to restage the election and exclude President Joko Widodo's son, Mr Gibran Rakabuming Raka, who is set to become vice-president.

A last-minute ruling in 2023 by the Constitutional Court on eligibility rules allowed Mr Gibran to be Mr Prabowo's running mate.

This was highly controversial as the court's chief justice at the time, Mr Anwar Usman, is Mr Widodo's brother-in-law, and Mr Anies' team has alleged that the move unfairly swayed the presidential vote.