Pieter El, legal counsel of the Respondent, delivering his response in the Paniai District regional election results dispute hearing, Tuesday (8/14) in the Courtroom of the Constitutional Court. Photos by Humas MK/Ifa.

The Constitutional Court (MK) once again held a hearing on the dispute over the election results of Paniai District on Tuesday (8/14). In the case No. 71/PHP.BUP-XVI/2018, the Paniai District KPU as Respondent claimed Candidate Pair Hengky Kayame-Yehkekiel Tenouye did not have legal standing because the vote margin between the Petitioners and the Relevant Party exceeded the threshold as stipulated in Article 158 Law No. 10 of 2016 on Regional Election (Pilkada Law).

Pieter El, legal counsel of the Respondent, stated that the vote margin reached 40.98 percent or 41,311 votes, where the Petitioners received 29,761 while Candidate Pair Meki Napiwa-Oktopianus Gobai as the Relevant Party received 71,072 votes. "Whereas the maximum vote margin is 2 percent," he said in the hearing chaired by Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat.

In addition, Pieter said that the petition is obscure (obscuur libel). The Petitioners did not elaborate on any dispute over election results which resulted in vote results margin between the Petitioners and the Relevant Party. However, the entire argument presented by the Petitioners in the posita questioned the legal issue whose implementation had been provided by the settlement institution.

The same thing was also expressed by Taufik Basari as legal counsel of the Relevant Party. He added that the margin did not fulfill the provision of Article 158 of the Election Law as well as Article 7 paragraph (2) letter a and paragraph (3) of PMK No. 5/2017. "The vote margin reached 40.98 percent. This means that the Petitioners do not have legal standing so the Constitutional Court should declare that the Court cannot accept the petition," he said.

Taufik also said that the petition was obscure (obscuur libel) because there was a discrepancy between the posita and petitum. "Because the Petition contains unclear matters between the petitum and posita, there is enough reason for the Court to state that the petition is obscure so it must be declared not accepted," he said. (Arif/LA/Yuniar Widiastuti)