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The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle’s (PDIP) witness Paskalis Letsoin (center) conveying a testimony in the 2019 DPR-DPRD Election Results Dispute (PHPU) hearing of Papua Province on Friday (26/7) in the Panel Courtroom of the Constitutional Court. Photo by Humas MK/Ganie.

JAKARTA, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—The Constitutional Court (MK) held a further hearing of the 2019 DPR-DPRD (House of Representatives-Regional Legislative Council) Election Results Dispute (PHPU) of Papua Province on Thursday (26/7/2019) at 08.00 WIB. The Panel 2 was presided over by Deputy Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court Aswanto, with Constitutional Justices Saldi Isra and Manahan M. P. Sitompul.

The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) as the Petitioner in the case No. 83-03-33/PHPU.DPR-DPRD/XVII/2019 presented Baharudin Farawowan as a witness during the national recapitulation of the election of DPRD members in Papua Province.

"We found vote reduction against PDIP in 6 districts by 25,046 votes," said Baharudin. 

Therefore, PDIP through Baharudin submitted an objection to PDIP’s vote acquisition and asked the Papua General Elections Commission (KPU) to compare vote acquisition data at the district and regency levels, especially in the 6 regencies that were considered problematic by the Petitioner. Central KPU Commissioner Hasyim Asy\'ari stated that he had received the objection but that the request could not be done, because the KPU Papua did not carry the document in question.

Regarding this issue, on May 24, 2019 PDIP reported the problem to the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu), who decided on May 27, 2019 that the KPU had committed an ethical violation. However, in the subject of the case, Bawaslu refused to do what was requested because the deadline had passed.

Another PDIP witness, Paskalis Letsoin, was a witness during a plenary vote recapitulation at the provincial level for the results of the 2019 Legislative Election in Papua Province.

“During the plenary [session], there were several DC2 sheets as a form of objection to PDIP’s votes in 6 regencies. First, we object to PDIP’s votes in Dogiyai Regency, because the results in the DA1 [form] were different from [that in the] DB1 [form] during the plenary [session] in the province,” said Paskalis.

Paskalis explained that he had previously asked for data comparison. Dogiyai Regency KPU responded positively to request for the comparison of DA1 data.

"However, when we were going to compare the data in Jayapura City, the KPU of Dogiyai Regency said that comparison could not be done. The reason was because the KPU of Dogiyai Regency did not carry the DA1 data," Paskalis explained.

Regarding the issue, the Papua Provincial Bawaslu confirmed that the Dogiyai KPU did not carry DA1 data and recommended a delay of one day for comparing data.  

Meanwhile, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) as Petitioner in case No. 11-08-33/PHPU.DPR-DPRD/XVII/2019 also presented a number of witnesses. Among them was Irsam Isak Samma, as PKS’s witness during vote recapitulation in Mappi Regency.

“The votes at the regency level were not in accordance with the votes we had at TPS [polling stations]. We objected during the vote recapitulation because [we] found two versions of the DA1 form. However, the organizers said that if we still objected to the vote acquisition, we should file a petition to the Constitutional Court,” said Irsam. (Nano Tresna Arfana/NRA)

Translated by: MJK/YW

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