Jakarta: The Indonesian capital is on tenterhooks as the country awaits a "final and binding" ruling from the Constitutional Court about who won its presidential election.
The decision, due later on Thursday, is expected to favour Jakarta governor Joko Widodo, whom the Electoral Commission pronounced the winner on July 22, with a margin of 8.4 million votes. But Mr Joko's rival, former military strongman Prabowo Subianto, challenged the result in the Constitutional Court. He has vowed never to concede defeat even if the court decision goes against him.
In anticipation of the result, the streets leading to the court and its precincts were barricaded by police.
Mr Prabowo's supporters were mustering early on Thursday, intending to take to the streets outside the court and in other key parts of the city, hinting at a violent backlash if he is once again declared the loser.
A number of entrances to the city from the outer suburbs were also closed on Thursday morning to prevent protesters being bussed in, as a reported 28,000 police troops were arrayed around the city to keep the peace.
National police chief General Sutarman said 42 groups were intending to stage demonstrations in the city, but he said the panel of judges would be able to decide the case fairly, and would not be influenced by the situation outside the court.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono remained in Jakarta, postponing a trip to the restive Papua province, to exercise a calming influence. On Wednesday he called together a meeting of his senior security advisers, including the police chief, to discuss the issue.
Members of Mr Prabowo's huge legal team have tried to ramp up expectations of victory in recent days, and also increased pressure on the court.
One of his team, Habiburokhman, said on Tuesday that Mr Prabowo's supporters "may get frustrated and they could explode at any time". It was useless to tell these people not to take action, Habiburokhman said, and, "we won't push for reconciliation [with Mr Joko's camp] if it's not genuine".
But most of the people attending pro-Prabowo rallies were paid rent-a-crowd members from uniformed "citizen militia" groups such as the "Red and White Brigade", which also protested outside the Australian embassy over last year's spying revelations. And it's highly unlikely that he will be able to muster significant public support because, according to credible polls, even many people who voted for him believe he should move on and accept the result.
Despite the police presence and the warnings from the Prabowo camp, Jakarta was bustling on Thursday morning with office workers going about their normal business.
In two weeks of hearings in the court, Mr Prabowo's case seemed to be weak, full of bluster but without the required evidence of "systematic, structured and massive" vote shifting that would be required to prove his case.
An analysis by academics Jim Della-Giacoma and Veri Junaidi said Mr Prabowo's case was "more like a political statement than a well-argued lawsuit".
Where voting patterns did seem suspicious, it was ambiguous who might have benefited, and involved relatively small numbers of votes – nowhere near the 8.4 million vote margin in favour of Mr Joko.
One example of alleged intimidation raised by Mr Prabowo in a personal statement to the court was emblematic of much of the case. He told the court of a case in the village of Banyuwangi, East Java, where, "the house of our witness was burned down".
Online media portal Detik.com sent a journalist to check the claim, but found that, firstly, it was not the witness' house that was attacked, it was the Prabowo-Hatta campaign office, and secondly that it was not set on fire, but someone threw stones at it.
Police told the journalist that the office was not specifically targeted, but some people had been throwing stones that day at a number of neighbouring houses. It had nothing to do with the election, but was purely a criminal incident, the police said.
