Hatta Rajasa Continues His Silence

Jakarta, July 24 (Antara) - Hatta Rajasa, the running mate of Prabowo Subianto, continued to remain silent until Thursday following Prabowo`s declaration to reject the July 9 presidential election and withdraw from the remaining election process two days ago. Despite assurance from several officials of his National Mandate Party (PAN) that he will speak at the opportune moment, Hatta himself has not yet emerged to the public so far. Just as the General Elections Commission (KPU) was finishing national recapitulation of vote tallies on Tuesday afternoon, Prabowo, flanked by leaders from political parties supporting him, made a surprise announcement that he had rejected the implementation of the election citing massive fraud and withdrew from the remaining process. Hatta Rajasa, who is also the general chairman of PAN, stayed away from the event. Following the conclusion of vote tallies on Tuesday evening, the KPU had declared Joko Widodo-Jusuf Kalla pair as the winner of the election. The Jokowi Widodo-Jusuf Kalla pair had secured 70,997,833 votes or 53.15 percent of the total 133,574,277 valid national votes, while Prabowo Subianto and his running mate Hatta Rajasa had received 62,576,444 votes or 46.85 percent. A guard at Hatta`s private residence in Jakarta said on Thursday afternoon that the former chief economic minister of current President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono`s cabinet was at home with his family. "Yes, he is at home. He is fine," he said. PAN`s deputy general chairman Drajad Wibowo said that as Hatta had other engagements, he could not accompany Prabowo Subianto during the latter`s announcement on Tuesday. He said that PAN was still in Prabowo`s Red-White coalition of parties and was also willing to sign a lawsuit to be filed at the Constitution Court to contest the KPU`s election decision. The Prabowo-Hatta camp`s lawyer, Mahendradatta, said that the pair would submit the document to the Constitution Court on Friday, which is the final day for filing the lawsuit.