By Ahmad Pathoni

JAKARTA (DPA) — Indonesian presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto on Tuesday withdrew from the country's election process, citing widespread fraud, just hours before the election commission was to announce the official results.

The commission was expected to declare Prabowo's rival, reform-minded Jakarta governor Joko Widodo, as the winner of the July 9 poll.

"We reject the 2014 presidential election that was legally flawed, and therefore we withdraw from the ongoing process," Prabowo said. 

Security was tight in the capital, with hundreds of armed police and soldiers guarding the headquarters of the election commission.  

Prabowo said the election commission ignored complaints from his camp about "massive, structural and systematic cheating."

"We have found instances of electoral fraud involving organizers that make this election unfair," he said.

He appealed to his supporters to remain calm and not to resort to violence. 

"We will base our struggle on the constitution and laws," he said. 

The election commission ignored Prabowo's demands that it hold new elections in thousands of polling stations where he said cheating took place.

Prabowo wanted the election commission to stop the counting process until all allegations of fraud had been investigated. 

There were fears of clashes involving rival supporters if either candidate refused to accept defeat after an unusually heated campaign marked by mudslinging, nationalistic rhetoric and slander. 

Joko claimed victory after most unofficial quick counts from the July 9 election put him leading by about 5 percentage points. 

But Prabowo disputed the counts and insisted that projections by other pollsters suggested a victory for him. 

"The official result won't be much different from the quick counts," said Burhanuddin Muhtadi, executive director of Indikator Politik Indonesia, a private pollster.  

A website run by private volunteers, Kawalpemilu.org, showed Joko leading with 52.9 per cent, compared to 47.1 per cent for Prabowo. 

The website charted actual vote tallies as they appeared in scanned form on the website of the election commission.

Joko urged his supporters to stay home on Tuesday and warned against street celebrations to avoid clashes with Prabowo's backers. 

Prabowo's campaign said it has enlisted 2,000 lawyers and paralegals to challenge the election result in the Constitutional Court, which could drag the process into late August.

The court has one month to settle any dispute from the presidential election.  

The court's reputation was undermined last month after its chief judge was sentenced to life for receiving bribes in connection with local election disputes. 

Analysts said Prabowo would have to prove that up to 7 million votes were stolen from him in order to change the result in his favour.

Outgoing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Monday urged the election loser to be gracious. ]

"Accepting defeat is noble, and congratulating the winner is beautiful," he said. 

Joko, 53, was a little-known local politician before he joined the race to become Jakarta governor in 2012. He has earned admiration for his hands-on leadership and ability to connect with ordinary people. 

The 62-year-old Prabowo, who once was married to one of former president Suharto's daughters, has amassed a fortune as a businessman and is seen as representing the country's elite old guard.

He styles himself as a strongman leader but has been dogged by allegations of human rights abuses during his time in the military.

By John Grafilo

KUALA LUMPUR (DPA) — Pro-Russian rebels delivered the flight data and voice recorders of downed passenger plane MH17 to Malaysian officials on Tuesday, a senior government official said.

The two black boxes were handed over to a Malaysian team in Donetsk by pro-Russian separatists, said Khairil Hilmi Mokhtar, leader of Malaysia's special investigation team in Kiev.

"We will take them to the Netherlands before bringing them back home to Malaysia," said Khairil Hilmi, according to Malaysia's state-run Bernama news agency.

The instruments were given to a group of Malaysian officials led by National Security Council member Colonel Mohamed Shukri, a government source in Kuala Lumpur said.

The equipment appeared to be in good condition, the source said.

"Malaysia will keep it for safekeeping temporarily and will eventually hand it to the proper investigating body," he said.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashed in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, killing all 298 people aboard. It was suspected to have been shot down by a missile.

Russian Ambassador to Malaysia Lyudmila Vorobyeva said she was convinced the pro-Russian separatists were not capable of shooting down the jetliner, as the guerrillas were not armed with a sophisticated missile system and did not have the technical know-how.

"The BUK missile system is very sophisticated and you need special training to operate it," she told a press conference at the embassy in Kuala Lumpur. "I am convinced that there is no way they (rebels) could have done it."

The delivery of the black boxes occurred after Prime Minister Najib Razak spoke Monday with rebel leader Alexander Borodai, who controls the territory where the plane crashed.

Najib said Borodai agreed to have the human remains from the crash site moved to Kharkiv, where they would be turned over to representatives of the Dutch government.

He also said independent international investigators would be guaranteed safe access to the crash site.
 

By John Grafilo and Wolfgang Jung

KIEV (DPA) — ​The Netherlands is set to take the lead into the investigation of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which crashed in eastern Ukraine last week, as Dutch investigators arrived Monday at the incident site to take over from their Ukrainian counterparts.

However, as has been the case since the Thursday crash – amid speculation that it was shot down in the midst of separatist fighting in eastern Ukraine – the way forward remained unclear, with Ukraine's government and much of the West accusing the separatists who control the region of hampering the investigation.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said victims would be flown to Amsterdam to be examined at a leading forensics institute. The majority of flight MH17's passengers were Dutch citizens.

So far, 251 of the 298 victims have been loaded onto a refrigerated train in the town of Torez, near the crash site. But it was not clear when the train would move on from there.

"These bloody guerillas do not allow the train to leave," Yatsenyuk charged.

However, a rebel spokesman has said his men would help the Dutch experts inspect the crash site and the bodies.

Malaysian specialists were also scheduled to arrive at the scene Monday.

Meanwhile, international pressure continued to mount on Moscow to use its influence with the rebels and get them to cooperate with the investigation and clean-up operations.

The United States and other countries say there is strong evidence that Russia supplied the missile that shot down the airliner on Thursday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and British Prime Minister David Cameron threatened on the weekend to increase EU sanctions pressure on Moscow.

In New York, the UN Security Council in New York was preparing to vote on a resolution Monday that would call on all involved parties to cooperate with the international investigation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned against misusing the incident for political purposes and shifted blame to Kiev and its military operations against the rebels.

"If the fighting in the east of Ukraine had not resumed on June 28, this tragedy would surely not have happened," he said.