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Chair of the Sekadau Regency KPU Drianus Saban giving his testimony at the second hearing of the election results dispute, Wednesday (3/2/2021) in the Courtroom of the Constitutional Court. Photo by Humas MK/Ifa.

JAKARTA, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—The Constitutional Court’s (MK) Panel I justices held the second hearing of the 2020 regional head election (pilkada) results dispute cases No. 12/PHP.BUP-XIX/2021 for Sekadau Regency and No. 43/PHP.BUP-XIX/2021 for Kotabaru Regency on Wednesday, February 3, 2021.

At the hearing presided over by Chief Justice Anwar Usman alongside Constitutional Justices Wahiduddin Adams and Enny Nurbaningsih, the Sekadau Regency KPU (General Elections Commission) as Respondent through Drianus Saban said that the lack of stamp on the D results envelope—which held the KWK result D form, the attendance list, the list of special incidents, and the minute of the subdistrict recapitulation meeting—by the Belitang Hilir PPK (subdistrict election committee) didn’t affect the votes for the candidate pairs. In addition, he said, the witnesses of both parties and Panwascam (subdistrict election supervisory committee) didn’t raise any objection.

Saban said, the regency Bawaslu had inspected the Belitang Hilir PPK and offered a recommendation to the Respondent, which was responded by the issuance of a written warning to the chair and members of the PPK. Saban stressed that the action by the Respondent had followed the existing legislation.

In response to the Petitioner’s allegation of procedural errors of voting and vote counting by the Respondent, Saban explained that the recapitulation had been carried out in tiers from the PPK to the regency KPU to allow corrections to any errors in the input of voter data and voter turnout data.

The statement was echoed by the regency Bawaslu, represented by Nur Soleh. Bawaslu stressed it had registered the report on the lack of PPK stamp and forwarded it to the KPU, which has since been followed up on by the KPU. In addition, Bawaslu stressed that the administrative violations at 24 TPS had been handled and the KPU had given the KPPS (polling station working committee) 03 of Sungai Kunyit a written warning.

Meanwhile, Candidate Pair No. 1 Aron-Subandrio (Relevant Party) through attorney Mehbob stated that the petition was vague. The voting procedure in several subdistricts that the Petitioner objected to already complied with the existing tiered mechanism. The Relevant Party believes the Petitioner hadn’t raised an objection and it wasn’t recorded as a special incident. There also wasn’t any special incident regarding the vote acquisition.

At the preliminary hearing, Sekadau Regency Candidate Pair No. 2 Rupinus-Aloysius (Petitioner) alleged that the KPU had committed violations and failed to follow existing procedure in six or seven sub-districts: Belitang Hilir, Nanga Taman, Nanga Mahap, Sekadau Hulu, Sekadau Hilir, and Belitang Hulu, except for Belitang.

Also read: Central Kalimantan, East Kotawaringin, Sekadau Election Results Challenged

Allegation of Violations Denied

At the same hearing, the Court also heard the statements of the Respondent, the Relevant Party, and Bawaslu for Kotabaru Regency. The KPU’s attorney Yuni Iswanto denied the arguments and allegations made by Candidate Pair No. 2 Burhanudin-Bahrudin.

At the preliminary hearing, the Petitioner alleged that SJA-Arul (Relevant Party) had politicized the bureaucracy and abused their authority by signing a joint statement between their campaign team and the presidium of new autonomous region of Tanah Kambatang Lima. In addition, the Kotabaru KPU had inflated 555 votes in seven sub-districts. The Respondent denied that such violations had occurred. Therefore, the Relevant Party appealed to the Court to dismiss the petition. Meanwhile, the Kotabaru Regency Bawaslu through Mohamad Erfan said that the Petitioner’s report didn’t meet the criminal criteria because there were no alleged violations that violated the law.

Writer: Utami Argawati
Editor: Lulu Anjarsari
Uploader: Fuad Subhan

Translator: Yuniar Widiastuti
Editor: NL
Managing Editor: Budi Wijayanto

Translation uploaded on 02/04/2021 16:47 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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