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The Constitutional Court (The Court) stated that the Langkat Election Commission (The Commission) as the Petitionee had violated the law on the announcement of Fixed Voter s List for the second round.  The violation was in form of the procedure for updating the voters data from the first round which was not done in sufficient amount of time and according to the mechanism, as the result, there was no opportunity to make objections, inputs, and correction that caused the loss of 18.502 voters (18.049 according to the Petitionee).  Yet, that did not significantly change the position order in the vote result.

That was announced in the trial for decision reading for case No. 66/PHPU.D-VI/2008, Wednesday (21/1), chaired by Vice Chief Justice of The Court, A. Mukthie fadjar, at The Court s Room.

The case was filed by Asrin Naim and Legimun (The Petitioner/Candidate Pair 4) which questioned among others, the Petitionee who had reduced 18.502 voters (18.049 according to the Petitionee) from the First Round Voters Fixed List into the Second Round List, The Petitionee added 69.934 voters in the Second Round List despite their not having the ID cards and numbers, The Petitionee also considered not following the correct procedure for making the Second Round List according to the existing law.

According to The Court, the procedure for updating voters list from First Round was not done in sufficient amount of time and according to the mechanism stated in Article 70 until 74 of Act No. 32/2004 about Regional Government, as the result, there were no opportunity to make objections, inputs and corrections. Besides that, the validated recapitulation data in the Fixed List for 2008 Langkat Election in Districts all over Langkat were mostly dated January 7 to January 10, 2009; which were after the event of the second round election held in December 20, 2008. Thaw was against the Article 70 paragraph (1) in conjunction with Article 74 paragraph (2) of Act No. 32/2004 about Regional Government.

Article 70 paragraph (1) of Act No. 32/2004 mentioned, “Voters list in the event of the latest election is used as the voters list for the election of regional head and vice regional head”.

Article 74 paragraph (2) of the same Act mentioned, “Temporary voters list as mentioned in paragraph (1) is announced by the Election Team to be responded by the people.”

According The Court, even though the argument was found to be valid, had the 18.502 missing voters were added to the Petitioner s votes, the number would not have been significant to change the rank in the vote result standing. “Therefore, the argument should be put aside,” said Constitutional Justice Akil Mochtar.

Regarding the Petitioner s argument about the Petitionee added 69.934 voters in the second round voters list, The Court stated that the argument was not proven legally and convincingly. Thus, it had to be put aside. “should the Petitioner s argument even be true—quod non—it could not be made sure to whom the voters casted their votes,” explained Akil.

Therefore, The Court stated legal the Decree of Langkat Election Commission No. 30/2008 dated December 24, 2008 about the Announcement of Elected Candidate in Langkat Election 2008. (Luthfi Widagdo Eddyono)

Photo: Doc. of CCRI PR / Yoga Adiputra

Translated by Yogi Djatnika / CCRI

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