(Left to Right) Dorel Almir, Muhammad Hafidz, and Abda Khair Mufti as Principal Petitioners delivering points of revision of the judicial review petition on the General Elections Law, Wednesday (19/9) in the Plenary Courtroom of the Constitutional Court. Photos by Humas MK/Ganie.

The Constitutional Court once again held the judicial review hearing of Law No. 7/2017 on General Elections (Election Law) in the Constitutional Court on Wednesday (19/9). The hearing of case No. 71/PUU-XVI/2018 was preside over by Constitutional Justice Saldi Isra, in the presence of Justices Suhartoyo and Enny Nurbaningsih. 

Muhammad Hafidz as one of the Petitioners conveyed the revision to the petition, including additional argument that strengthened the petition. Furthermore, Hafidz said that the Petitioners added that by not regulating campaign funds restrictions in the a quo article, the Petitioners claimed that this would allow attempts to influence voters through the sale and purchase of votes. In addition, the Petitioners stated that the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election was the only manifestation of democracy. "We see that there is no new governance that is better than the government if corruption still exists," he said. 

In the petitum, the Petitioners requested that the Constitutional Court accept the petition entirely and declare the a quo article contrary to the 1945 Constitution and conditionally constitutional. "So, in essence, [we are] asking that political party campaign funding contributions be equated with individuals," Hafidz explained.

Petitioners Dorel Almir, Abda Khair Mufti, and Muhammad Hafidz claimed that the provision of campaign funds as stipulated in Article 326 of the Election Law has the potential to impair their constitutional rights. The provision is detrimental because it does not regulate the limitation of campaign funding for the presidential and vice presidential election originating from one or a pair of candidates for the president and vice president or from political parties. As election participants, presidential and vice presidential candidate pairs or political parties are given the right to receive campaign funds that are not binding on individuals and may not exceed 2.5 billion rupiah or are from non-governmental groups, companies, and/or business entities that cannot exceed 25 billion rupiah. However, the Election Law does not regulate the limits of the granting of campaign funds for the election of the president and vice president concerned or for political parties.  

Therefore, the Petitioners requested that the Constitutional Justices declare Article 326 of the Election Law to not have binding legal force insofar as the campaign funds for the election of president and vice president originating from individuals including president and vice president candidates must not exceed Rp85,000,000,000.00 (eighty five billion rupiahs), as well as those from groups including political parties and/or joint political parties may not exceed Rp850,000,000,000.00 (eight hundred fifty billion rupiahs), companies and/or non-government business entities. If the a quo article is declared conditionally constitutional, Darel added, as citizens who are also obliged to safeguard the implementation of fair elections, the Petitioners hoped that the elected government of the president and vice president will not be concerned by the interests of donors who can harm the public interest. (Sri Pujianti/LA/Yuniar Widiastuti)