Marius Ukago, Diyai Village chief, presented by the Petitioners\' legal counsel to give his testimony during the 2018 Deiyai District Head Election Results dispute, Thursday (8/30) in the Courtroom of the Constitutional Court. Photos by Humas MK/Ifa.
Noken is where Papuans accommodate ideas, and it contains norms—commands and prohibitions. In addition, in regional head elections, noken has benefits because it facilitates the implementation of regional elections in the distribution of elections. This was conveyed by the Papuan culture expert, Titus Pekei, as Expert presented by the Candidate Pair Number 1 Ateng Edowai and Hengky Pigai in the follow-up hearing on the 2018 Deiyai District regent and deputy regent election results dispute Dion Thursday (8/30) at the Plenary Courtroom of the Constitutional Court. The hearing of case No. 35/PHP.BUP-XVI/2018 was led by Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court Anwar Usman accompanied by the eight other constitutional justices.
Titus, expert for the Relevant Party, said that the noken system applied in Papua, including in Deiyai District that consists of 7 traditional territories, is a symbol of traditions that is still recognized and is everlasting. Basically, Titus added, the noken system run by the community in the regional head elections involves collecting opinion from each participant of the deliberation, then making an agreement to be submitted at a higher level.
"So, noken supports the democratic process and its administration is arranged in such a way so that if something has been agreed upon, the noken cannot be taken by anyone. And if after the election the noken [cannot be taken]. That [would] hurt the value of democracy," Titus explained.
Two Plenary Meetings
On the same occasion, Candidate Pair Number 4 Inarius Douw and Anakletus Doo as Petitioners presented several witnesses, including Agusten Yuppy, a youth figure who witnessed the election process at the TPS. On the discrepancy of the voting results, Agusten said there had been two plenary meetings for 3 subdistricts. In the first one, held on June 27, 2018, the voting results of Candidate Pairs number 1–4 were 2,777 votes, 93 votes, 40 votes, and 183 votes respectively. However, when the C1-KWK form was filled out not all voters and election organizers were present. Therefore, the community and those in TPS decided to delay filling out the C1-KWK form. However, with the urging of the PPD organizers, they filled out the C1-KWK form.
However, on June 28, 2018, voters who did not attend the previous day requested their voting rights be returned because the voting not in accordance with the agreement. "On the same day, the second plenary meeting was held with the voting results for candidate pairs number 1–4 being 2,128 votes, 230 votes, 24 votes, and 713 votes respectively. It was approved by the organizers and the community agreed and the next day it was submitted to KPU," Agusten explained.
Results of Noken
Meanwhile, Marius Ukago as chief of the Diyai village, West Tigi Subdistrict, Deiyai District in his testimony said that the distribution of votes in the Deiyai District Election for the Diyai Village 1 was 88 votes for Candidate Pair Number 1, 100 votes for Candidate Pair Number 2, 100 votes for Candidate Pair Number 3, and 2,000 votes for Candidate Pair Number 4. "That was the agreement made by the community on June 2, 2018," Marius said.
This was also confirmed by Meliana Badi as a village figure who was also presented by the Petitioners. "On June 2, 2018, the community agreed to vote with such voting division," she explained.
Delayed
The Respondent through Otias Edowai as a member of the West Tigi PPD explained that as the team in charge of distributing all the needs of the election, his team had distributed them on June 26, 2018. So on June 27 the community channeled their aspirations democratically. In the afternoon, Otias explained, the C1-KWK and all votes had been collected in PPD, but 1 of the 22 polling stations in the Deiyai District, TPS 1 Kampung Diyai, had not submitted complete documents.
Otias explained that his team as PPD made corrections to the field due to the issue, resulting in the delay in the plenary meeting of the recapitulation of the overall vote count results scheduled on June 30, 2018.
"Under pressure from the Diyai villagers that did not approve and demanded the amendment of the votes they have agreed to, we recommend them to the District Panwas because PPD would soon hold a plenary meeting," Otias explained.
Agreement
The Constitutional Court also heard the statements from several witnesses for the Relevant Party, including Yustinus who was the Mandate Witness of the Candidate Pair Number 1 for the Kapiraya Subdistrict, Deiyai District. In his statement, Yustinus explained that on June 20, 2018, the Kapiraya Subdistrict community agreed to submit 3,090 votes to Ateng Edowai and Hengky Pigai (Candidate Pair Number 1). However, based on the results announced based on Plenary meeting 1, the announced vote counts were 2,777 votes for Ateng Edowai and Hengky Pigai (Candidate Pair Number 1), 93 votes for Keni Ikamou and Abraham Tekege (Candidate Pair Number 2), 40 votes for Dance Takimai and Robert Dawapa (Candidate Pair Number 3), and 185 votes for the Petitioners.
"Unexpected things, that is the ballots seizure of by certain parties, resulted in changes in the voting results, which can be seen from the vote recapitulation ballots being erased and repaired. So Plenary meeting 2 was carried out with different results, 2,128, 230, 24, and 713 votes for each candidate pair respectively," Yustinus explained.
However, after discovering this the Deiyai District Panwas took a stand and conducted the 3rd Plenary meeting and together with Deiyai District KPU agreed to accept the demands of the Kapiraya Subdistrict community who wanted to return to the mutual agreement to change the vote results, which was 3,090 votes for Ateng Edowai and Hengky Pigai (Candidate Pair Number 1), 1 vote for Keni Ikamou and Abraham Tekege (Candidate Pair Number 2) , 1 vote for Dance Takimai and Robert Dawapa (Candidate Pair Number 3), and 1 vote for the Petitioners.
In the previous meeting, the Petitioners stated that there was votes margin between the Petitioners and Ateng Edowai-Hengky Pigai (Relevant Party/Candidate Pair Number 1) of 1,220 votes or around 2%. However, in the 2018 Simultaneous Regional Election, Candidate Pair Number 1 along with Dance Takimai and Robert Dawapa (Candidate Pair Number 3) as well as the Deiyai District Panwas have committed violations and fraud.
The Petitioners noted three frauds and violations—the Respondent reduced the Petitioners’ votes and transferred it to Candidate Pair Number 1; there was vote manipulation in Diyai I Village of West Tigi Subdistrict, resulting in a reduction in the Petitioners’ vote from 2,000 votes to 688 votes; Deiyai District Panwas was unprofessional and not independent. In addition, according to the Petitioners, in an attempt to win Candidate Pair Number 1, one of the Deiyai District KPU Commissioners Marinus Edoway ordered the Kapiraya Subdistrict KPP Melianus Kotouki to change the votes obtained by the Petitioners and other candidates as follows: Ateng Edowai and Hengky Pigai (Candidate Pair Serial Number 1) received 3,090 votes; Keni Ikamou and Abraham Tekege (Candidate Pair Number 2) received 1 vote, Dance Takimai and Robert Dawapa (Candidate Pair Number 3) received 1 vote, and the Petitioners received 1 vote. This fraud was carried out under the pretext of referring to the Kapiraya Subdistrict Community Agreement on June 20, 2018. For this reason, through the petition, the Petitioners petitioned that the Deiyai District KPU Decree No. 19/HK.03.1-KPT/9128/KPUKab/VII/2018 on the Vote Count Results Recapitulation at the District in the 2018 Election of Deiyai Regent and Deputy Regent on 8 July 2018 be declared not actual votes. (Sri Pujianti/LA/Yuniar Widiastuti)
Thursday, August 30, 2018 | 22:23 WIB 148