If Joko win's this next and final? stage today will Subianto be organising coup?

Indonesia's Constitutional Court is expected to decide today if the election of Joko Widodo as the country's next president is valid, after the losing contestant lodged a legal challenge. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-21/indonesian-court-set-to-decide-election-validity/5685836

Pete

@Plantagenet:

The Constitutional Court threw-out Prabowo's lawsuit against the elections today. Looking at the 'lawsuit' documents of Prabowo uploaded fully into the Constitutional Court's website, as well as following the court sessions aired live on TV, it is clear Prabowo's legal team made very poor and amateurish case. One of their witnesses could only quote supposed election cheating which he said he read out of a newspaper, while some of the legal documents blamed Prabowo's own team for attempted fraud.

Given today Prabowo can only raise around 1000-2000 paid crowds which were easily dispersed by police with a few tear gas canisters, obviously he does not have the power to launch military coup, given he neither has much influence over the military and the police.

Best he can do is to keep paying his political allies in parliament to annoy Jokowi administration.

Hi Proud to be Indonesian

Yes it seems Prabowo Subianto has been unsuccessful.

Where Duncan Graham says the following in his article should give pause for thought:

"[Joko] could grow into the job but so far his speeches have been embarrassingly uninspiring. As the Plan B candidate selected when his sponsor Megawati Soekarnoputri was persuaded not to stand, Jokowi is looking more and more like the Accidental President."

My main concern now is that Joko might lose popularity, creating a power vacuum that Prabowo Subianto would seek to fill.

Cheers

Pete

Well, Joko Widodo has had track record of improving his hometown of Surakarta when he was mayor from 2005-2012, as indicated by his mayoral re-election in 2010 with 85% of the votes.

In Jakarta, in the past two years his administration had actually started construction of MRT system which had never moved from planning stage since 1980s. He also has launched free education and free healthcare system using the KJP (Smart Jakarta Card) and KJS (Healthy Jakarta Card).

In terms of being a doer, Jokowi seems to be a better bet compared with Prabowo who has never actually held any government administrative office. Prabowo's poor management skills, unstable personality, and total lack of touch with reality was displayed for all Indonesians to see with his erratic responses and out-of-touch calls for 'war against Election Commission' after the presidential elections. That is the mental image Prabowo has implanted on the mind of Indonesian people in the past 1.5 months or so.

A recent survey suggested that if a re-vote was actually held, Jokowi will win with 75% of the votes which means around 50% of Indonesian voters who voted for Prabowo on July 9 has changed their mind about him after seeing the abovementioned erratic reactions.

Thanks Proud to be Indonesian

I've been almost totally ignorant about Jokowi though more knowledgable than most of my countrymen.

The Abbott government has distracted Australians away from chronic budget-Clive Palmer domestic governance problems with a news cycle of Ukraine-MH17 and Iraq-ISIL-Terrosism.

There's been virtually no public interest in the Indonesian Election as the few OLO articles (all by Duncan Graham) reflects.

Jokowi's record of achievements (that you've pointed to) shows a lot of promise for Indonesia.

Regards

Pete

@Plantagenet:

Good for you to have interest in Indonesian developments.

A conclusive statement on this episode is that Indonesian people at large fully support the democratic system which was implemented by the will of the people themselves back in 1998, to ensure peaceful transfer of power after rather bloody and violent downfall of two dictatorial regimes which was in power in the previous 50 years.

Also it can be said that the presidential election system which is in place is proven to be in good working order.