The Constitutional Court begins to hold preliminary sessions for 147 regional election dispute lawsuits, which compile from 132 regions. As known, nine Constitutional Justices divided into three justice panels.

On Monday morning (7/1), Chief Justice Arief Hidayat led Justice Panel 1 in first session, examining dispute lawsuits from North Halmahera regency, South Halmahera regency, and West Halmahera regency.

North Halmahera regent and deputy regent candidate pair Kasman Hi Ahmad-Imanuel Lalonto (Case Number 108/PHP.BUP-XIV/2016) filed an objection on the Decree of North Halmahera Regency Election Commission. According Applicant’s Attorney Refly Harun, frauds occurred in six North Halmahera districts, which were Loloda Islands (Loloda Kepulauan), North Loloda, Tobelo, North Galela, West Tobelo, and Kao Bay (Teluk Kao). He said that plenary vote recapitulation at the regency level was incomplete. Five polling stations in Loloda Islands district lost recapitulation form (C-1), he added.     

“North Halmahera Regency Election Commission is considered commit ethic violations by ignoring vote result differences between the official result announced by North Loloda regency election committee (PPK) with witnesses’ record,” said Harun to Justice Panel led by Chief Justice along with Constitutional Justices I Dewa Gede Palguna and Manahan Sitompul.

Vote Result Reduction in South Halmahera

Meanwhile, South Halmahera regent and deputy regent candidate pair Bahrain Kasuba-Iswan Hasjim (Case Number 1/PHP.BUP-XIV/2016) claimed their vote result reduced and transferred to candidate pair Amin Ahmad-Jaya Lamusu. Representing by attorney AH Wakil Kamal, the Applicant argued his side supposed to get 43.144 votes, while candidate pair number 1 Ahmad-Lamusu get 40.893 votes. However, fraud occurred in Bacan district and resulted vote result change which beneficial to candidate pair number 1, Kamal added. As known, the official result determined candidate pair number 1 as the winner.

The Applicant claimed they had reported the fraud to North Maluku Provincial Election Monitoring Body (Bawaslu Maluku Utara). The Body then recommended them to compare vote result records between the regency election commission and regency election monitoring committee with candidate pair’s witnesses. However, there was no further follow up by the Body. Due to it, the Applicant filed lawsuit to the Constitutional Court and requested the Court to set vote result according to Applicant’s calculation. (Lulu Anjarsari/lul)