An unprecedentedly close contest in this
year’s Indonesian presidential election is raising fears that ballot counting
fraud, vote buying and other irregularities could result in a “stolen” victory
for the controversial ex-general Prabowo Subianto.
Prabowo’s
popularity surged in the polls since his opponent Joko Widodo reached a peak
lead of almost 30 percentage points back in March this year, but still appears
to be trailing by somewhere in the region of three to six percent ahead of
today’s ballot.
A
victory for Jokowi looks set to be the likely outcome, but it is not yet beyond
doubt. A well-orchestrated plot to swing the verdict through less than savoury
means could result in a Prabowo triumph, given that only a very small number of
ballots would need to be rigged or bought to tip the result.
Covert operations
According
to award-winning US journalist Allan Nairn, best known for his intrepid
coverage of occupied East Timor during the 1990s, a covert operation “designed
to ensure that the July 9 vote count will be won by General Prabowo Subianto”
is already under way. On the evening of Saturday 5 July, Nairn published “documented
accounts of recent meetings at Kopassus [Indonesian special forces]
headquarters”, revealing a campaign of intimidation and vote rigging in
partnership with team Prabowo and Indonesia’s State Intelligence Agency (BIN).
Kopassus is the notorious special forces unit formerly under the command of
Prabowo Subianto, which presided over the abduction, torture and murder of
pro-democracy activists shortly before the downfall of the Suharto dictatorship
in 1998. The lesser known – but perhaps yet more heinous crimes committed by
Kopassus under Prabowo’s watch – include mass executions of both civilians and
combatants during Indonesia’s brutal occupation of East Timor and West Papua.
Last
week a current member of Kopassus contacted Allan Nairn and agreed to disclose
details of the unit’s secret plot to ensure a Prabowo victory. The
whistleblower spoke on condition of anonymity and asked for the date of the
call not to be published. In the conversation that ensued, Nairn was told the
“operation involves ballot tampering, street violence, and threats against
Jokowi supporters, and could involve, in extremis, “the elimination of people”
(“habisi orang”) if need be.”
As far
as the whistleblower is aware, the Kopassus/BIN ballot tampering program will
be focussed on manipulating the vote count at “key local precincts”, rather
than a distortion of the national vote tabulation. An enormous amount of covert
cash has been put aside to help rig the counting process, described by the
whistleblower as “money that is not seen, money from the side of the road”
(“uang itu tidak kelihatan, uang di pinggir jalan”). According to Nairn’s
scoop, this stock of secret cash will be used to “play with the ballot papers”
(“main dengan kertas suara”) by placing [pro-Prabowo] agents inside counting
rooms or paying off state employees who guard the ballot boxes.” The
whistleblower could not reveal the source of the secret funding for the
operation, however, emphasising that such matters are “very closed” (“sangat
tertutup sumbernya dari mana”).
With
regards to the use of violence and intimidation during the election, Nairn was
told that Kopassus/BNI have employed civilian agents to “make trouble from
below” (“ribut di bawah”), as well as “private Prabowo street militias” with a
more organised character. The whistleblower described such militias as “having
been trained, and frequently rob/ plunder wherever” (“..sudah berlatih, [dan]
sering merampok ke mana mana”).
A legacy of terror
Although
it is still incredibly difficult to verify any of the information disclosed to
Nairn during his exchange with the anonymous Kopassus member, the details of
the operation thus described do seem to be consistent with the unit’s usual
style of covert action.
A
previously leaked Kopassus manual stipulates that new recruits must be trained
“in the tactic and technique of terror”, covering intimidation of targets and
their loved ones through anonymous death threats made via call or text. In the
past Kopassus has also had an extensive secret network of civilian informers to
boast of, as was documented in another of Nairn’s landmark scoops back in 2010.
Nairn’s latest revelations have been dismissed angrily by Prabowo’s campaign
team, who have condemned the veteran journalist as an “enemy of the nation” and
called for him to be deported immediately.
Nairn
published the details of the Kopassus/BNI conspiracy on the back of a damning
three-part series of articles exposing Prabowo’s links to big business in the
US, as well as his previous role as an obedient and bloodthirsty “United States
protégé” prior to the fall of Suharto. This shocking and highly publicised set
of exposés made an embarrassing mockery of Prabowo’s zealous nationalism and
often xenophobic rhetoric, which Nairn later referred to as a “scam” and “a
180-degree inversion of the truth.”
Unfortunately
Nairn’s piece on the Kopassus/BNI plot has been comparatively underreported by
both Western and Indonesian media outlets, even though – as of Sunday night –
the story has been confirmed by at least one other member of the BNI. The
impact of Nairn’s final pre-election bombshell therefore remains strangely
limited, having caused much less alarm than it perhaps should have. With less
than seven hours to go until the official vote count begins, only time will
tell whether Prabowo’s infamous special forces outfit is truly willing to steal
a presidential election or not. Either way, the Indonesian General Elections
Commission (KPU) must endeavour to be as vigilant as possible in their
overseeing of today’s balloting procedures, and must report any irregularities
in a strictly non-partisan fashion. A stolen election won by an ex-general who
should really be on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity would – I’m
sure you would agree – be a sad day for democracy the world over.
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