---

Tuesday, February 16, 2021 | 18:29 WIB

Constitutional Justice Enny Nurbaningsih reading out the legal considerations at the ruling hearing of the East Kotawaringin Regency election results dispute, Tuesday (16/2/2021) in the Plenary Courtroom of the Constitutional Court. Photo by Humas MK/Ifa.

JAKARTA, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—The Constitutional Court (MK) rendered the East Kotawaringin regent election results dispute petition by Candidate Pair No. 4 Muhammad Rudini Darwan Ali-Samsudin inadmissible. The Decision No. 14/PHP.BUP-XIX/2021 was read out on Tuesday afternoon, February 16, 2021. “[The Court] declares the Petitioner’s petition inadmissible,” said Justice Anwar reading out the verdict alongside the other eight constitutional justices in the plenary courtroom.

In the legal considerations read out by Constitutional Justice Enny Nurbaningsih, the Court stated that it didn’t find any initial evidence of violations and other matters that the Petitioner had argued that could affect voters at the disputed polling stations (TPS) and/or the vote recapitulation.

“Based on the aforementioned legal considerations, the Court believes that the a quo petition doesn’t warrant any violation of Article 158 of Law No. 1 of 2016 regarding the Petitioner’s legal standing, which is a formal requirement to file a governor, regent, and mayor election results dispute petition to the Court. Therefore, it is [inappropriate] to advance the a quo petition to the evidentiary hearings,” she read.

Justice Enny added that the Petitioner didn’t have legal standing as the vote margin threshold wasn’t met. Based on Article 157 paragraph (1) letter b of Law No. 10 of 2016, the vote margin between the Petitioner and the candidate pair with the most votes should be no more than 1.5% x 168,155 total valid votes, or 2,522 votes.

“The Petitioner earned 47,161 while the Relevant Party (the candidate pair with the most votes) earned 56,536, so the vote margin between was 47,161 subtracted from 56,536, which is 9,375 votes (5.6%) or more than 2,522 votes,” she explained.

Also read:

Central Kalimantan, East Kotawaringin, Sekadau Election Results Challenged

Court Asked to Reject Petitions on Central Kalimantan Province and East Kotawaringin Regency

At the preliminary hearing, Muhammad Rudini Darwan Ali-Samsudin requested that the Court nullify the East Kotawaringin Regency KPU Decree No. 213/PL.02.6-Kpt/6202/Kab-Kab/XII/2020 on the Certification of the 2020 East Kotawaringin Regency Election Vote Counting Recapitulation dated December 15, 2020. They alleged that their votes had been reduced massively. They received 47,161 votes but, through a manual count, their team discovered that 5,000 votes had been eliminated. They were supposed to have acquired 52,161 votes.

The Petitioner alleged that this was because the polling station working committee (KPPS) didn’t follow procedure, leading to data discrepancy, resulting in the reduction of the Petitioner’s votes and/or inflation of the other candidate pairs’. In addition, many voters who didn’t have the C6 invitation form had voted using only resident ID (KTP) and were accidentally recorded in the attendance list by the officers. Therefore, there could have been 5,633 potentially invalid voters.

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

Translator: Yuniar Widiastuti
Editor: R.A. Indah Apriyanti
Managing Editor: Budi Wijayanto

Translation uploaded on 02/17/2021 14:34 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.

---