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Deputy Chief Justice Aswanto speaking at the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle’s (PDI-P) education for the party’s regional heads and vice regional heads running in the 2020 Simultaneous Pilkada, Saturday (29/8) in Jakarta. Photo by Humas MK/Gani.

JAKARTA, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—Votes in the regional head election (pilkada) must be kept secure starting from the polling stations (TPS) to the regency and provincial election committees, and witnesses play a crucial role at polling stations, said Deputy Chief Justice Aswanto at the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle’s (PDI-P) education for the party’s regional heads and vice regional heads running in the 2020 Simultaneous Regional Head Election (Pilkada). The event took place online on Saturday afternoon, August 29, 2020.

He also said that the Court examines all documents of the parties in a pilkada dispute case. “The documents that we examine are those the parties, the petitioners and the relevant parties, use as a basis to support their votes, which are evidentiary,” he explained on “The Procedural Law of the 2020 Simultaneous Gubernatorial, Regency, and Mayoral Election Results Dispute Resolution and Vote Safekeeping.”

He stressed that the petitioner must rely on the original C1 forms signed by administrators because they will be examined by the Court to support the General Elections Commission’s (KPU) calculation. “[You] must have the C1 form that has evidentiary power, which is issued by an authorized party, in this case, the five KPPS [polling station working committee] officials. This [form] can serve as a means to safeguard votes,” he said to PDI-P cadres running for governors, regents, and mayors as well as the public who attended the event virtually.

Changesin pilkada vote number often occur. For example, the ballots from the polling stations that are signed by administrators and witnesses were reduced when received by the sub-district election committee (PPK). Justice Aswanto stressed that when such a case happens, it is then brought to the Court. If the Court is convinced that the C1 form of the candidate pair is valid, the votes will be returned.

Pilkada Dispute Mechanism

The parties who are aggrieved by the KPU’s decision may file a pilkada result dispute petition to the Constitutional Court. The law stipulates that election contestants may do so. These contestants are candidate pairs of the governor-vice governor, regent-vice regent, and mayor-vice mayor. They have legal standing to file a case as petitioners and to act as relevant parties.

“The law has guaranteed that election candidate pairs have the right to present witnesses who safeguard the vote counting at TPS. There are requirements. The validity of pilkada result counting must be safeguarded by witnesses,” Justice Aswanto said.

The object of the petition is the KPU’s decision on the final results of the election, which determines the winning candidate pair. However, petitioners often mistakenly use the KPU’s plenary meeting minute as the object.

“When [pilkada candidates] feel their votes have been reduced, they don’t accept the KPU’s decision and hope for the Court [to resolve the issue]. Therefore, drafting a petition carefully following the Court’s version is part of safeguarding the votes,” Justice Aswanto said.

He added that there is an issue with the Pilkada Law, which has been amended with Law No. 10 of 2016. An article in the law stipulates that to file a petition to the Court, there is a threshold on the vote margin between the petitioner and the election winner. For example, for a regency/city with a population of 250,000, the margin shouldn’t exceed 2.5 percent.

Before the enactment of that law, when a petition didn’t meet the formal requirements, the Court always said that the petitioner didn’t have legal standing to file the case. In other words, there is no legal measure to maintain the number of votes. “The latest Constitutional Court Regulation stresses that it’s no longer the case. Even if the margin exceeds 2.5 percent, the case must be examined,” he highlighted.

Writer: Nano Tresna Arfana
Editor: Nur R.
Photographer: Gani
Translator: Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

Translation uploaded on 9/7/2020 10:19 WIB

Disclaimer: The original version of the news is in Indonesian. In case of any differences between the English and the Indonesian version, the Indonesian version will prevail.

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