Second round election in Sanggau Regency, West Kalimantan, did not run smoothly because the Candidate Pair No. 2, Yansen Akun Effendy and Abdullah, made a claim against Sanggau Election Commission which gave win to Candidate Pair No. 6, H. Setiman H. Sudin and Paolus Hadi, to the Constitutional Court.

In the trial for Case No. 64/PHPU.D-VI/2008 on Tuesday (6/1), the Petitioner through the Legal Counsels, Raymundus Loin and Christof H. Purba, explained that the election had been done with various violations, such as, votes mark-up, ignored objections made by the Petitioner s witnesses, threats and intimidations, also Vote Center closing up before the due time.

In fact, in the improved petition, Raymundus added that around 5000 Petitioner s supporters did not get the vote invitation, “as the result, they could not cast their votes,” explained Raymundus.

Not only that, Raymundus also explained that there were more than ten heads of families casted votes to represent their family members. Based on the Petitioner s counting, their side failed to win the election because their number of votes had been lacking of more than 5000 votes due to the violations.

Responding to claim, the Petitionee. Sanggau Election Commission, through their Legal Counsel, Andel, argued that the Constitutional Court was not authorized to examine the case because the Petitioner could not explain in detail the exact deficit in the votes between the Petitioners s counting and the Petitionee s version. “The Petitioner is also failed in fulfilling the material requirement because they can not explain in which Vote Centers the miscalculation happened,” said Andel.

Speaking in the same tone as the Petitionee, the Related Party, the winning pair in the Commission s version, stated that the Petitioner s claim did not fulfill the formal requirement because the object of the dispute was the real deficit in the recapitulation. “Besides that, there were no objections reported from the Petitioner s witnesses,” said the Legal Counsel for the Related Party. (Wiwik Budi Wasito)

Photo: Doc. MK PR/Kencana SH

Translated by Yogi Djatnika / MK