Indonesia’s top court rejected an effort to block presidential candidates who are over 70 or implicated in human rights abuses, clearing the legal path for a septuagenarian former general’s ultra-nationalist campaign.
Lawyers belonging to a human rights advocacy group and other petitioners argued that the constitution required stricter limits than those written in the 2017 General Election Law, which sets no maximum age.
If successful, the petition would have blocked frontrunner Prabowo Subianto, 72, a former special forces general and current defense minister, from competing in the election scheduled for next February.
While the petitioners said they were not targeting a particular candidate, Subianto’s candidacy is widely feared by human rights activists, who associate him with torture and disappearances during the final years of the dictatorship of Gen. Suharto, who ran Indonesia for more than 30 years until his sudden resignation in 1998.
The petitioners asked the court to rule that the candidates cannot be older than 70 years old, citing the constitution’s requirement that candidates be “mentally and physically capable” for the office.
“We deeply regret this decision,” said petitioner Anang Suindro, the coordinator of Alliance 1998 Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights. “We considered that today the Constitutional Court has failed to protect and fight for human rights in Indonesia’s election process.”
The ruling came one week after the Constitutional Court carved out an exception to the law’s minimum age, allowing Subianto to choose his preferred vice presidential candidate.
Some of the petitioners also proposed rules barring candidates connected to genocide, forced disappearances and other human rights abuses.
Constitutional Court Judge Daniel Yusmic Foekh said that granting the petition “could weaken the existing legal certainty.”
The Constitutional Court’s decision is final.
A longtime commander in Indonesia’s Kopassus special forces, Subianto was discharged from the military in 1998 after Kopassus soldiers kidnapped and tortured activists political opponents of Suharto, his then father-in-law. Of 22 activists kidnapped that year, 13 remain missing. Subianto never faced trial, although several of his men were tried and convicted.
Subianto went into self-imposed exile in Jordan for several years, later returning to Indonesia and founding a political party. He ran for the presidency twice, losing to current president Joko Widodo both times, before accepting a position in Widodo’s cabinet.
