The recapitulation process in Sub-district Election Committee had run with no obstacles, in fact there were no debate arose. That was stated by Bahagia Maha, a witness from the Petitionee, Subulussalam Election Commission (the Commission) in the follow-up trial for the dispute over regional election in Subulussalam City, Nangroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD), Monday (12/01), at the Constitutional Court (the Court) Panel Room.   

Bahagia s testimonial was similar to the statement from 13 other Petitionee s witnesses to deny the previous testimonials from the witnesses of the Petitioner, Candidate Pair No. 5, H. Asmauddin, SE and Drs. Salmaza. Bahagia added that the information from one of the Petitioner s witnesses which claimed that there were ballot box with broken lock and unsealed was not true, because the entire boxes was delivered to the Independent Election Commission (IEC) and the Election Watchers Committee, “with tight security by using voorijder in front of the vehicle bringing the boxes and guarded at the back by several members of the Police squad,” he explained.

According to Muslim Ayub, another candidate in the election eliminated at the first round, in fact the Petitioner duet were the one did the misconducts by abusing the power the had. Before taking part in the election, H. Asmauddin was the Officer in Mayor s Office meanwhile his partner was the Head of Citizenship Office which was responsible for taking care of citizen s data. “Therefore, in the second round, I told my supporters who were not listed in those five districts to vote for (candidate) No. 1. There were about 200 people at that time,” he added.

Related to the suspicion on the unsealed boxes violation, another witness, Budi Hasudungan Lubis, admitted that when he did the recapitulation in Simpang Kiri District, he found the objections from candidate No. 5 witnesses, “that there were unsealed boxes and (the report) was signed by each witness,” he pointed out.

Hearing to Expert
Besides hearing the Petitionee s witnesses, in the same trial which was adjourned twice, the Court also heard the information from Petitionee s experts. According to M. Dja far, SH, M.Hum, a Lecturer in Law Faculty of Syiah Kuala University, IEC was collegial in nature that in making its decision had to go through a plenary session. Before holding the session, the IEC was expected to make an announcement and send invitation to all candidate pair at least three days before, ”so that the witness from each candidate can attend the session.” he explained.

Besides, Dja far said that the election process had to be done according to the schedule arranged. However, in the case that the IEC failed to meet the schedule, a change in the schedule was allowed and that did not break the law so long as it met the requirements, which were that the change had to be reached by plenary session mechanism and the decision for the change was put into an IEC decree, then the decision had to be announced to the people. (Yogi Djatnika)

Foto: Doc. of CCRI PR/Wiwik BW

Translated by Yogi Djatnika / CCRI