The Constitutional Court held the fourth trial for dispute over vote standing in Pinrang Regency Election. The case No 43/PHPU.D-VI/2008 began hearing the information from the witnesses of both parties, Petitioner and Petitionee.

In the trial conducted on Thursday (27/11), candidate pair Sjamsudin and Renreng represented by their Legal Counsels, Muh. Ridwan SH. and Syaifullah SH., presented two witnesses, Abdul Haris dan Risman Bando, as key witnesses of the dispute arises.

The agenda for hearing information from Petitioner s witnesses was filled with information obscurity due to the witness misunderstood the questions from the Petitioner s lawyers and the information was delivered in a complicated way. Witness Abdul Haris revealed that the legal votes in Pinrang Regency should have been 180,205, however the witness could not explain the illegal votes in details.

Abdul Haris also revealed that there were 48 votes reduced to become eight votes from District recapitulation to Regency recapitulation. Again, the witness could not explain in detail to which candidate the missing votes went. ”You are under oath so you do not have to say something you do not know,” emphasized Constitutional Justice Maruarar Siahaan.
 
Another violation was revealed by the second witness, Risman Bando. He explained that there were 29,597 people in the Fixed Voter List of Duanpanua District, Pinrang Regency; but the people invited were only about 22,190 people.

Risman added that the people who were not invited mostly supported Sjamsudin-Renreng pair. The witness who was an Election Watcher in Duanpanua District did not sign the recapitulation form for Pinrang Election Commission because the signing was done on an empty recapitulation paper which was potential to create a violation if the watcher committee members had signed it.

On the information from Risman, one of the Petitionee s Legal Counsel, Pinrang Election Commission inquired, ”have you stated your objection in the vote recapitulation location?” Risman informed that he had said his objection but it was ignored by the District Election Committee side.

After the trial, the Board of Constitutional Justice demanded all parties to submit their conclusions. The next trial was scheduled on Tuesday (2/12) at 14.00 WIB. (Bayu Pratama Putra)

Photo: Doc. MK PR/Yogi Dj

Translated by Yogi Djatnika / MK