The Constitutional Court stated that the claims from Asmidin and Mohammad Ridwan, candidate No. 1 in Regional Election in Wajo Regency, were refused entirely. That was announced in the trial open for public for case 34/PHPU.D-VI/2008, Wednesday (26/11), in the Constitutional Court Main Room.

Asmidin and Mohammad Ridwan questioned the recapitulation result of Wajo Regency Election issued by Wajo Election Commission (Petitionee). Based on the recapitulation result, Asmidin-Ridwan pair got 70,232 votes; meanwhile Andi Burhanuddin Unru and Amran Mahmud (candidate No. 3) got 73,789 votes. The total legal votes reached 199,367 votes.

According to Asmidin-Ridwan, the Commission s counting had been wrong, instead the correct one would be according to the Petitioner s with the legal votes as many as 201,020 votes. Asmidin-Ridwan claimed that 1,653 votes considered illegal were coming from 14 Districts and thus another recapitulation process was needed. To convince the Constitutional Court, they delivered letters as evidence and heard to several witnesses.

The Court said, based on the evidences submitted by the Petitioner, there was no single legal and convincing evidence to show the mistake in Petitionee s recapitulation and stating the right one would be the Petitioner s version. Besides that, the Petitioner s argument on the total number of illegal votes in 14 districts were the votes goes to the Petitioner, could not be proved legally based on the evidences in form of letters and witnesses brought by the Petitioner, therefore the claims had to be turned down.

Related to the request for another recapitulation, the Court then considered that there were not enough legal reasons and proofs. “Apart from the possibility whether or not there were violations in the Wajo election process, according to the Court, there were not enough legal evidences and reasons to grant the Petitioner s demand to have another recapitulation in Wajo,” announced Constitutional Justice A. Mukthie Fadjar.

As the result, according to the Court, the objection claim from Asmidin-Ridwan on the election recapitulation result by Wajo Election Commission could not be proved. (Luthfi Widagdo Eddyono)

Photo: Doc. MK PR/Wiwik BW

Translated by Yogi Djatnika / MK