---

One of the indications of a democratic country was having scheduled and regular general elections. Therefore, without holding a general election the democratic character of a country would disappear. Consequently, in order to keep the democratic character with the existence of elections, then the election event had to be conducted of high quality.

That was delivered by the Chief Justice of The Constitutional Court (The Court), Moh. Mahfud MD, as he officially opened the symposium between The Court and political parties participating in 2009 General Election, Friday (16/1), in Jakarta. Mahfud also added that high quality election was the election held accordingly to the people s intention without any violence, including political violence.

In the past, explained Mahfud, despite holding the election regularly, elections could not be set apart from political violence conducted by the government to the people. ”One of them was through the act on political parties which limited parties to only three,” he pointed out.

To make the high quality election come true, a mechanism for settling disputes over the result was needed to avoid political violence. At this point, according to Mahfud, it was of high importance to understand the role of The Court as a judiciary institution whose authority was provided by the 1945 Constitution to settle the disputes in the election. The understanding, he added, was not only important for the organizer of the election (The General Election Commission) but also for the participants of the election. ”So nobody will lose rights,” explained Mahfud.

Not Legislative Candidate
At that event, Mahfud also explained that the participants in legislative election was political parties so that the disputes essentially was between the Election Commission against the political parties, not the legislative candidates.

”Therefore, it was the party and not the person who could file a case to The Court (to claim against the election result-ed.) If there is a candidate feeling disadvantaged, ask the party as the representation,” reminded Mahfud. The only individual element allowed to submit a case to The Court was the candidates for City Councils.

Considering that The Court had decided elected candidates to be based on most number of votes, it was possible that disputes between candidate within a party to arise. If so, Mahfud explained that such disputes came under the domain of general judiciary. ”Finish the internal conflict first in the general court before bringing the case to The Court,” he noted.

Related to The Court s decision about most votes regulation, Mahfud confessed that The Court received many critics from many sides because the decision was considered to grow vote transaction practices.

Responding to the critics, Mahfud said that every decision always had its positive as well as negative impacts. Even though so, said Mahfud, The Court would consider that the election which met the democratic values was the one which was based on people s voice, not the candidate rank arranged by political parties.

Mahfud also added that before The Court s decision was made, the potential for money politics could happen when deciding the candidate s number by the party s management. Meanwhile after the decision, the money politics would shift to be directly from the candidates to the people. “Then just consider which one is better, buying votes in retail directly to the people or wholesale to the party s management,” said Mahfud.

The Dialogue Forum held by the General Secretariat and Registrar of The Court was the second volume joined by representations of 22 political parties participating in 2009 Election. Through this event, the participants would be given understanding about law and the procedure of having a case at The Court concerning the settlement of disputes over election result and the procedure and technical for filing a case about the claim against election result. All materials would be delivered by sources consisted of Constitutional Justices, Former Constitutional Justices, Head of the Election Commission, the Election Monitoring Body, Police Officers, Officers from the Attorney General Office also the Supreme Court.

However, until this report was made, for the three day holding the event, only Supreme Judge Djoko Sarwoko, representing the Supreme Court, would be absent from the meeting without sound reasoning. The committee (for the event from The Court-ed.), according to the Secretary General of The Court, Janedjri M. Gaffar indeed failed to get the confirmation on the absence of Djoko; however, based on the result of the previous coordination meeting of six institutions (The Court, Supreme Court, The Police, Election Monitoring Body, Election Commission, and Attorney General Office), a Joined Center for Law Enforcement had been formed guarded by the Supreme Court, Election Monitoring Body, Police and Attorney General Office to settle the criminal violations in the election within five days period. ”We all are committed to keep the election agenda,” remarked Janedjri in front of the participants of the meeting, Sunday (18/1).

After the presentation from the Secretary General of The Court, in the closure speech Vice Chief Justice of The Court, Abdul Mukthie Fadjar, expected that the legislative and presidential elections 2009 would go safely and better than the one in 2004, also every party participating in the election could build and maintain the unity of the nation. ”Every party can compete in the the election, but they have to remain united,” he exclaimed. [ardli/wiwik]

Photo: Doc. of CCRI PR /Andhini SF
Translated by Yogi Djatnika / CCRI

---