(Left to right) House members Arteria Dahlan, Taufik Basari, and Habiburokhman in the judicial review hearing of the Eleciton Law, Monday (18/11) in the Courtroom of the Constitutional Court. Photo by Humas MK/Gani.

JAKARTA, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—The House of Representatives (DPR) stressed that the phrase "simultaneously" in the Election Law is a follow-up to the Decision of the Constitutional Court (MK) Number 14 of 2013. In the ruling, the Court granted five petitions of the petitioners in part and revoked Article 3 paragraph (5), Article 12 paragraphs (1) and (2), Article 14 paragraph (2), and Article 112 of Law Number 42 Year 2008 on the General Election of President and Vice President (Presidential Election Law). The legal consideration was essentially to strengthen the presidential system.

This was conveyed by House member Taufik Basari, along with members Habiburokhman and Arteria Dahlan, in a follow-up hearing of Law Number 7 of 2017 on General Elections (Case Number 37/PUU-XVII/2019), Law Number 7 of 2017 on Elections General, Law Number 8 Year 2015 on the Amendment to Law Number 1 Year 2015 on the Stipulation of Government Regulation in Lieu of Law Number 1 Year 2014 on the Election of Governors, Regents, and Mayors (Case Number 55/PUU-XVII/2019) , on Monday (18/11/2019) at the Constitutional Court.

Taufik added that the Court believed that the implementation of the presidential election after the election of legislative members did not reinforce the government system desired by the constitution, i.e. the presidential system. The Court also interpreted the original intent desired by the formulators of the Amendment to the 1945 Constitution. "The presidential election being carried out simultaneously with the [legislative election] referred to the opinion by Slamet Effendy Yusuf, one of the ad hoc committee members of the MPR [People’s Consultative Assembly] Working Committee based on the Minutes of Commission A’s Second Session at the 2001 MPR Annual Session, November 5, 2001," Taufik explained.

The House responded on the casualties in the 2019 simultaneous election. "The casualties in the 2019 elections is not correlated with the enactment of the a quo articles of the Election Law. Any problems or shortcomings in the execution of the simultaneous elections will be an evaluation material for the election organizers to organize better elections. Therefore, the Petitioners\' opinion is irrelevant, so we consider it presumptive," said Taufik before the justices led by Chief Justice Anwar Usman.

The House also responded on the regional election questioned by Petitioner of case No. 55/PUU-XVII/2019. "Pilkada [regional election] is part of the regime of regional government heads as referred to in Article 18 Paragraph (4) of the 1945 Constitution and is not an electoral regime as referred to in Article 22E of the 1945 Constitution. In the legal considerations of the Constitutional Court, Decision Number 97 of 2013 number 3.12.5, Pilkada is not in the electoral regime, but is in the regional government regime," Habiburokhman said.

Next, the House responded on to the request of revocation of the term of office of the governors-vice governors, regents-vice regents, mayors-deputy mayors of the 2020 election, who will serve until 2024. The House explained that the a quo articles were the implication of the decision made during lawmaking that the nationally simultaneous regional election was scheduled to be carried out in 2024. The year was decided following the implementation of a series of simultaneous regional elections in 2015, 2017, and 2018.

Elections for Humanity 

Criminal law expert Topo Santoso, presented by the Constitutional Court, responded on the death of more than 550 election organizers and the illness of more than 3,000 organizers. "I browsed through various international media. It turns out, the death of a large number of election organizers was not found, unless we continue searching. Frankly, this is very disturbing and needs to be studied in depth, to prevent similar events from recurring," he said.

According to Topo, the election should be for humanity and not vice versa. However important the election is for a democratic country such as Indonesia, it should not result in high casualties. Human resource is the first thing that must be protected by law above other interests.

"According to the theory Maqashid As-Sharia Al-Khamsah by Al-Syatibi, which discusses the five objectives of the law, the main objective of the law is to protect the interests of dharuriyat, the interest that must be fulfilled, that is, protection of the soul, reason, offspring, wealth, and so on," said Topo.

Topo explained that if the elections continue to be held simultaneously in one day for many positions, as is currently carried out to elect five positions, it may impact the health and safety of election organizers if everything is done manually. Given the time constraints, and counting, and recapitulation, many documents must be filled in, and so on.

"In addition, there are many demands for transparency, accountability, and honesty by election stakeholders, as well as the threat of criminal sanctions over mistakes when carrying out their duties," Topo added.

The Petitioners of case No. 37/PUU-XVII/2019, Arjuna Election Observer, Pena Election Observer, and five others challenged Article 167 paragraph (3), which reads "Voting shall be conducted simultaneously on a holiday or a nationally-declared day off," and Article 347 paragraph (1), which reads "Election voting shall be conducted simultaneously."

The Petitioners argued an empirical fact that the 2019 simultaneous elections claimed many casualties among election organizers. They believe the petition needs to be seen as an effort to evaluate the results of simultaneous elections. The Court’s decision No. 14/PUUXI/2013 that granted the petition requesting that the elections be held simultaneously was based on three reasons. First, based on constitutional practice, the presidential election is conducted after the legislative election does not reinforce the government system desired by the constitution, therefore is not in line with Article 22E paragraphs (1) and (2) and Article 1 paragraph (2) of the 1945 Constitution. Second, judging from the original intent as well as grammatical and systematic formulation, the presidential election is held in conjunction with the legislative election. Third, simultaneous presidential and legislative elections will be more efficient and budget-saving.

Director of the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) Titi Anggraini as Petitioner of case No. 55/PUU-XVII/2019, challenged Article 167 paragraph (3) and Article 347 paragraph (1) of Law Number 7 of 2017 on General Elections, Law Number 8 of 2015 on the Amendment to Law Number 1 of 2015 on the Stipulation of Government Regulation in Lieu of Law Number 1 of 2014 on the Election of Governors, Regents, and Mayors.

Titi said that simultaneous elections with 5 ballot boxes had led to complexity for voters. She mentioned a research by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI). Voters in simultaneous elections have to face a lot of ballots, a large number of candidates, so it is impossible to them to vote rationally. The 5-box simultaneous election also showed an increase of invalid votes, which undermined representation of voters in the elections. (Nano Tresna Arfana/NRA)

Translated by: Yuniar Widiastuti