On Thursday, August 21, Indonesia’s highest court announced that they were unanimously upholding Indonesia’s presidential election result declaring Joko Widodo (Jokowi) as the winner. Prabowo Subianto challenged the result, claiming that there had been cheating at several polling stations, and those stations should hold new elections.
But as expected, the Constitutional Court Chief stated, “The court rejects … all applications from the applicant by all nine judges.” The entire verdict took about four and a half hours to read. Before the verdict was read, thousands of Prabowo supporters gathered near the court. When they heard the verdict, they tried to break through security barriers, forcing police to fire teargas and water cannons into the crowd.
A spokesman for Prabowo urged his supporters to refrain from violence and told them that Prabowo is respecting the court’s ruling. Now that the legal hurdles are out of the way, Jokowi can speed up his preparations to take office on October 20.
Pray that there won’t be any violence as a result of this verdict, and pray for Jokowi as he puts his transitional team and cabinet together.
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