JAKARTA, Indonesia — Four Indonesian Cabinet members testified Friday that no rules were violated in the distribution of government aid during the recent election campaign, despite claims by the two losing presidential candidates that it was used for the benefit of the election winner.
Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto won the election with 58.6% of the votes, or more than 96 million ballots, more than twice the amount received by each of the two runner-ups in the three-way race, according to the General Election Commission.
The losing candidates — former Jakarta Gov. Anies Baswedan and former Central Java Gov. Ganjar Pranowo — say the election was marred by irregularities and are asking the Constitutional Court to annul the results and order a revote in separate lawsuits.
They say Subianto’s victory was the result of widespread fraud and that outgoing President Joko Widodo and his administration bent laws and norms to support Subianto, with government social aid used as a tool to buy votes.
Indonesian presidents are expected to remain neutral in elections to succeed them, but Subianto, a former rival of Widodo who twice lost elections to him before joining his government, ran as his successor. He even chose Widodo’s son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as his vice-presidential running mate, even though Raka did not meet a constitutional requirement that candidates be at least 40 years old.
Baswedan and Pranowo argue that Raka should have been disqualified and are asking the court to bar him from a revote. Before the election, Raka was granted a controversial exception to the minimum age requirement by the Constitutional Court, which was then led by Anwar Usman, Widodo’s brother-in-law. Usman was later forced to resign as chief justice for failing to recuse himself.
Hefty social aid from the government was disbursed in the middle of the campaign — far more than the amounts spent during the COVID-19 pandemic — and Widodo distributed funds in person in a number…
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