Secretary General of the Constitutional Court M. Guntur Hamzah inspecting the Constitutional Court building before the ruling hearing of the 2019 presidential election results dispute (PHPU) on Thursday (27/6/2019). Photo by Humas MK/Ifa.

JAKARTA, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—The Constitutional Court held a ruling hearing for the 2019 presidential and vice presidential election results dispute (PHPU). Both parties were optimistic that their requests will be granted by the Constitutional Court.

Yusril Ihza Mahendra, attorney of the Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidate Pair Number 01 Joko Widodo-Ma’ruf Amin’s, emphasized “Without preceding the will of Allah SWT, we believe the Constitutional Court will reject the petition for the whole,” said Yusril when he arrived at the Constitutional Court at around 12.00 WIB.

Yusril said, the statement was not without basis, because his camp saw the Petitioner could not prove their arguments in the hearings. He believed that the Witnesses and Experts that the Petitioner presented could not strengthen their arguments, so his camp did not try to argue strongly at the hearing. "[Let us hope for] no more revenge and anger after the Constitutional Court’s decision. Let us end all conflicts peacefully," he said.

Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidate Pair Number 02 Prabowo-Sandiaga Uno’s attorney Bambang Widjoyanto was similarly optimistic about winning this case. "We have two reasons. No one could refute the statements of the Witnesses and Experts that we had presented. Then, we proposed new references as the basis for consideration of the petition, that is, scientific identification in the form of digital forensic [assessment]. They could not refute it," he said.

In addition, Bambang said that the General Elections Commission (KPU) as the Respondent, as well as the Relevant Party could not deny the violations of the 2019 General Elections allegedly carried out by Vice Presidential Number 01 Ma\'ruf Amin. According to him, Ma\'ruf served as an SOE official when he became a vice presidential candidate, contrary to Law Number 7 of 2017 on Elections. He also hoped that the panel of justices would consider the new propositions that his camp proposed as basis for deciding this case.

Today the ruling hearing began at 12:30 WIB. Security at the Constitutional Court was tightened during the hearing. The road in front of the Constitutional Court was blocked to prevent demonstrations from taking place. The Constitutional Court was guarded by Police personnel to anticipate riots. The Constitutional Court was also surrounded by barbed wires to further enhance existing security. (Arif Satriantoro/LA/FS/YW)