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Witnesses and expert for Petitioner taking oath before Constitutional Justices in the 2019 DPR-DPRD-DPD PHPU hearing of North Sumatera Province in the Panel I Courtroom of the Constitutional Court, Thursday (25/7/2019). Photo by Humas MK/Ifa.

JAKARTA, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—The General Elections Commission (KPU) of West Nias Regency opened ballot boxes to review the input of DA1 and DAA1 forms into the hologrammed C1 form to check the sub-district recapitulation data. This act was not in accordance with the procedure of vote tally recapitulation.

This fact was conveyed by Bambang Eko Cahyo, expert for the Golkar Party (Petitioner) in a further DPR-DPD-DPRD (House of Representatives-Regional Legislative Council-Regional Representatives Council) election results dispute (PHPU) hearing in the Panel I Courtroom on Thursday (25/7/2019). In the hearing, Bambang gave a statement in relation to electoral violations that led to the purge of the Petitioner’s votes.

According to Bambang, there are conditions for recount at every level of the elections. One of them is the finding of mismatched counts of valid votes, invalid votes, voter lists, and voters in attendance. In his statement, Bambang explained that each witness and party who objected to the calculation had the right to propose a recount that began at the polling station level. "The recount does not need a complicated mechanism," said Bambang regarding the case No. 173-04-02/PHPU.DPR-DPRD/XVII/2019.

Law Number 7 of 2017 (Election Law) Article 378 clearly stipulates that a recount can be carried out at the Sub-district Election Committee (PPK) level 5 days after Election Day. If there are errors and objections, revision can be made during the recapitulation. "So, revision in recapitulation at the regency level can be done if it is indeed necessary according to existing requirements, so the KPU is only tasked with making revision from the certification," Bambang said before the panel of justices led by Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court Anwar Usman, with Constitutional Justices Enny Nurbaningsih and Arief Hidayat.

At the end, Bambang emphasized that elections are procedural democracy because they have procedures that must be adhered to by every element within, including stakeholders and people who exercise their right to vote. Such procedures are in place so that fraud will not occur and does not harm the meaning of the election. Therefore, the KPU in its capacity has the right to control the stages of elections to be honest and have legal certainty as well as procedural justice and substance. "However, if there is a violation such as the case submitted by the Petitioner, then the KPU must ask for a follow-up to the Election Supervisory Agency [Bawaslu]," Bambang said answering a question by the Petitioner\'s attorney Ali Nurdin. 

No Objection

Related to West Nias KPU opening PPK ballot boxes, Nigatinia Gulo as a member of the West Nias KPU who was present at the time of the recapitulation, confirmed that the recapitulation process at the regency level had run smoothly and had no significant problems. However, it was only on May 4, 2019 that her team received a letter from the North Sumatra Provincial KPU regarding alleged reduction in the vote acquisition of the Golkar Party’s DPR candidate for the electoral district (Dapil) of North Sumatera II Lamhot Sinaga. After coordinating with the West Nias Regency Bawasl, he added, a review was done by re-counting the votes and opening the PPK ballot boxes.

"However, it was done after coordinating with many parties including the polling committee (PPS) in the 3 sub-districts, and apparently they (PPS) did not carry out their duties. After the recapitulation that we had done was completed, the Petitioner’s witness did not object," Nigatinia explained. 

Data Change

In the same session, the Panel I justices also heard the case No. 145-02-02/PHPU.DPR-DPRD/XVII/2019 filed by Gerindra. Irvan P. Manuel as a campaigner for Gerindra candidate Bima Quartya in Dapil Binjai City 3 stressed that the recapitulation results at TPS 12 of Sumber Mulyorejo Village, East Binjai Sub-district, Binjai City had been changed. In the Petitioner’s witnesses’ notes, Irvan found that candidate Joko Basuki received 0 votes. “However, after the PPK recapitulation, it was changed to 18 votes,” Irvan explained.

Binjai City KPU member Risno Fiardi explained that for Dapil Binjai City 3, the data change at the TPS questioned by the Petitioner had occurred due to inputting mistake. He said his team had revised the data by opening the C1 Plano form. “It turns out that on the C1 Plano form, the 18 votes had been found to belong to Joko Basuki and not Bima,” Risno explained.

Still Objecting

In case No. 205-07-02/PHPU.DPR-DPRD/XVII/2019 filed by Berkarya Party, the Respondent, represented by Gunung Sitoli City KPU chairman Firman Novrianus Gea, confirmed that a fire had happened after the vote tally recapitulation at sub-district level. However, before it happened, the election organizers had carried out tiered recapitulation in 32 villages, from TPS (polling station) level to PPK level.

“Therefore, the DAA1 [form] of the 32 villages has been issued. During the fire, the document saved was the data of 31 villages, minus Onozitoli Orola Village, which only had 1 TPS,” Firman explained.

After the fire, the Respondent inventoried existing documents and held a coordination meeting with stakeholders, including witnesses of the contesting parties and all parties with an interest in resolving the issue. The Respondent then compared the data belonging to Bawaslu, witnesses, PPS, and PPK. “After all was complete, the recapitulation at the sub-district level was continued,” Firman explained.

However, Gunung Sitoli City Bawaslu, represented by Endra Amri Polem in his statement, stated that Bawaslu was among those doubted the DA1 form submitted by the Respondent on the results of the recapitulation of the election in Gunung Sitoli City. According to him, to fill data onto the DA1 form, the Respondent must complete data collection at all levels of recapitulation. "What has not been done by the Respondent is actually the recapitulation at the sub-district level because basically the existing data belonged to PPK," Endra said.

Besides the aforementioned cases, the justices of Panel I also heard cases No. 197-05-02/PHPU.DPR-DPRD/XVII/2019 filed by Nasdem, No. 87-03-02/PHPU.DPR-DPRD/XVII/2019 filed by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), No. 117-12-02/PHPU.DPR-DPRD/XVII/2019 filed by the National Mandate Party (PAN), No. 02-08-02/PHPU.DPR-DPRD/XVII/2019 filed by  the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), No. 131-09-02/PHPU.DPR-DPRD/XVII/2019 filed by the United Indonesia Party (Perindo), No. 143-20-02/PHPU.DPR-DPRD/XVII/2019 filed by the Indonesian Justice and Unity Party (PKPI), No. 23-01-02/PHPU.DPR-DPRD/XVII/2019 filed by the National Awakening Party (PKB).

In addition, the panel of justices also held a DPD (Regional Representatives Council) election results dispute (PHPU) petitioned by a North Sumatera DPD candidate Faisal Amri in case No. 04-02//PHPU-DPD/XVII/2019, but the Petitioner did not bring any witness.

At the end of the hearing, Justice Anwar Usman said that the hearing was the last one. All litigants will be informed of the ruling hearing by the Court. (Sri Pujianti/LA)

Translated by: Yuniar Widiastuti

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