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Constitutional Court held an initial trial for dispute over election result in Jeneponto Regency, South Sulawesi Province, Friday (14/11). The case No. 38/PHPU.D-VI/2008 was pleaded by Regent candidate pair No. 6, H. Sjamsuddin Zainal, S.E., M.P. dan Djahini, S.H.
 
In the trial lead by Constitutional Justice Maruarar Siahaan, The Petitioners in their points stated their objection on the transcript of proceeding No. 77/P.KWK-JP/XI/2008  dated November 6, 2008 about the announcement of elected Jeneponto Regent and Vice for 2008-2013 period issued by Jeneponto Election Commission (as the Petitionees).
 
The Petitioners considered the counting process illegal because, “from the data we got, there have been a reduce in the number of votes conducted systematically in the election,” claimed the Petitioners Legal Counsel, Irwan Muin, SH. MH.
 
In the trial which started at 14.00 WIB, the Court questioned whether or not the Petitioners had reported their suspicion to the authorities beforehand. “We indeed have reported some of this problems to Election Watchers while some others were not responded,” answered Irwan Muin.
 
On the announcement of the Election Commission, candidate No. 5, Radjamilo dan Burhanuddin BT came out as the winner with 100,434 votes. Meanwhile, the Petitioners were in the second place with 66,189 votes. However, the Petitioners stated that there had been a reduce as many as 35,280 votes. Part of that number of voters were the Petitioners supporters who could not vote in because they were not given the invitation and/or their election cards by the Petitioners.
 
According to the counting made by the Petitioners, they claimed to get 101,469 votes, meanwhile candidate No. 5 only deserved 99,754 votes. Besides that, the Petitioners also claimed that the Election Commission did not give a copy of transcript of proceeding form (form C2-KWK) about the recapitulation result from each voting center to each candidate also recapitulation result from each voting center certificate (form C1-KWK) to 315 Petitioners witnesses.
 
Responding to the claim, the Election Commission in the trial could not provide official information before the court because they had not prepared the material. Due to that, the trial was adjourned until Tuesday (18/11) at 16.00 WIB as the next trial was scheduled to examination of evidences from both parties and written explanation from Jeneponto Election Commission. (Bayu Pratama/Wiwik Budi Wasito)
 
Foto: Dok. Humas MK/Andhini SF
Translated by Yogi Djatnika / MK

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