AKIPRESS.COM - Defeated presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto plans to file an appeal in Indonesia’s constitutional court, according to senior members of his campaign team.

Joko Widodo, the reformist governor of Jakarta, was declared Indonesia’s next president on Tuesday after beating Mr Subianto, a former general and self-styled strongman, by 53 per cent to 47 per cent.Mr Subianto’s brother, Hashim Djojohadikusumo, and other members of his team on Wednesday said they would file a protest against the “fraudulent” election process by the Friday evening deadline, the Financial Times reports from Jakarta.

Mr Djojohadikusumo claimed that irregularities had been detected at 52,000 out of Indonesia’s 479,000 polling stations but said there was no evidence that Mr Widodo had benefited from these issues any more than Mr Subianto.

The comments came a day after Mr Subianto rejected the election process as “undemocratic” though one of his lawyers suggested on Tuesday that he would not appeal to Indonesia’s highest court.

However, on Wednesday, Tantowi Yahya, a senior legislator and member of the campaign team, said that Mr Subianto had “withdrawn from the counting process but had not withdrawn as a presidential candidate” so he could still launch an appeal.

The latest move by Mr Subianto’s defiant campaign team could make investors nervous. The constitutional court, which is heavily discredited after its previous chief judge was jailed for corruption (he sold verdicts on local election disputes to the highest bidder), will decide on any legal protest within a month.

But political analysts say that this election in which Mr Widodo came out on top was the best-run presidential contest that Indonesia has held, and they believe it is unlikely that Mr Subianto’s legal challenge will succeed.

World leaders have already been congratulating Mr Widodo.

John Kerry, the US secretary of state, pointedly commended the Indonesian people for showing “their commitment to democracy through free and fair elections”.

Some members of Mr Subianto’s team have privately called on him to accept defeat, but Mr Djojohadikusumo said his brother would only stop his fight “when we get satisfactory redress”.

But he also claimed that “if all legal means are exhausted we will accept the result”.