Ali Nurdin as legal counsel of North Maluku Provincial KPU giving an answer to the petition in a dispute over the dispute over the Election Result of North Maluku Province, Wednesday (1/8) in the Panel III Courtroom of the Constitutional Court. Photo by Humas MK/Ganie.

The hearing of North Maluku Province (Malut) Election Dispute Resolution (PHP) was held again by the Constitutional Court (MK), Wednesday (1/8). In the second hearing of Case No. 36/PHP.GUB-XVI/2018, the North Maluku Provincial Elections Commission (KPU) stated that the petition was obscure (obscuur libel).

Ali Nurdin as legal counsel of the North Maluku Provincial KPU claimed that the argument expressed by the Candidate Pair Number 3 Abdul Gani Kasuba-M Al Yasin Ali did not have a basis because it did not indicate the place where the recapitulation fraud had taken place. In addition, the Petitioners also did not present concrete evidence of fraud.

In addition, said Ali, the Petitioners did not explain the details about the people accused of double voting, did not mention the party who perform intimidation to choose Candidate Pair Number 1 Ahmad Hidayat Mus-Rivai Umar, and did not present strong evidence. "In addition, the Petitioners did not specify the correct number of votes according to them. This is clearly an obscure petition and it should not be accepted," he explained in the hearing led by Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat.

Aslant Hasan from the Malut Province Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) denied the Petitioners\' allegations regarding structured, systematic, and massive (TSM) money politics in all North Maluku Province regions. The North Sumatra Bawaslu only found eight cases of money politics. This shows that the Petitioners\' argument that money politics occurs in all regions in North Maluku Province is inaccurate. "The accusation of using state facilities is also not proven by Bawaslu," he said.

Aslant denied the Petitioners\' allegation that six villages in North Halmahera District had not voted. He revealed it was low level of voter participation, and not a voting issue. "The Petitioners’ request of a re-vote is clearly unfounded because six villages have held an election and run it smoothly," he said.

In the same session, the Constitutional Court also examined election result dispute (PHP) of Madiun Municipality. Dedy Prihambudi as legal counsel of the Madiun Municipal KPU stated that the Petitioners did not have a legal standing to file a case because the vote margin between the Petitioners and the Relevant Party exceeded the two-percent threshold.

"The losing candidate pair received 35,352 votes and the winning candidate pair won 39,465 votes. The vote margin reaches 4 thousand. It means that it does not fulfill Article 158 paragraph (2) of Law Number 10 of 2016 (Local Election Law)," he said.

Meanwhile, the Madiun Municipal Election Supervisory Committee (Panwas) Kokok Herum Purwoko stated that there were no findings of vote reduction alleged by the Petitioners. In addition, there were no objections regarding the results of the election including by the Petitioners. "In the 23 polling stations (TPS) questioned by the Petitioners in their petition, there were no objections to the results of the vote recapitulation," he said. (Arif/LA/Yuniar Widiastuti)