As the Petitioners' attorney, Bambang Widjojanto, and Heryanto presented three witnesses in the third hearing of Banjarmasin Mayor Election Results Dispute No. 21/PHP.KOT-XIX/2021 on the hearing of witnesses/experts testimony in Panel II Court Room of the Constitutional Court Building (MK). Monday (01/3). Photo: PR/Ilham.
JAKARTA, PUBLIC RELATIONS – The Constitutional Court (MK) held the third hearing for Banjarmasin Mayor Election Results Dispute. The case No. 21/PHP.KOT-XIX/2021 was filled by Candidate Pair No. 4 Ananda and Mushaffa Zakir. The Petitioner asked the Court to annul the decision of Banjarmasin General Election Commission (KPU) No. 245/PL.02.6-Kpt/6371/KPU-Kot/XII/2020 concerning the Certification of Vote Count Results Recapitulation for the 2020 Banjarmasin Mayor Elections.
The hearing was held on Monday (01/03/2020) at 13.30 WIB in the Panel II Court Room presided by Deputy Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court Aswanto accompanied by Constitutional Justices Suhartoyo and Daniel Yusmic P. Foekh. The hearing was for the testimony from witnesses/experts as well as certification of additional evidence.
The Petitioner were represented by their attorneys, Bambang Widjojanto, and Heryanto. Meanwhile, the Principals, Ananda and Mushaffa Zakir were present virtually. Banjarmasin KPU (Respondent) was represented by their attorney, Syahrani. Then, Muhammad Kurniawan Putra as the Relevant Party's attorney, and Banjarmasin Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) was represented by Mastawan.
Baiman Card 2
The Petitioner presented three witnesses, namely Gusti Juli, Nur Rona Sari, and David Santoso, as well as one expert, Bambang Eka Cahya Widodo. According to Gusti Juli who is the Coordinator of Banjarmasin-Baiman 2, abbreviation of Barasih wan Nyaman (clean and cozy), a socio-development program by Candidate Pair No. 2 (incumbent). Each coordinator was asked to collect citizen identification cards (KTP) as many as possible. Later, the KTP holders will be given a Baiman 2 card with a nominal value of Rp.100,000 if they vote Candidate Pair No. 2 (Ibnu Sina-Arifin Noor). The coordinators will be given a wage of Rp10,000 for every KTP they had submitted. Then, the Baiman 2 card can be used as a social assistance card, health insurance assistance, education security that valid for five years.
The evidence from Gusti statement was the message history from WhatsApp group named Baiman 2 Coordinators and Baiman 2 Card, which included the incumbent also as the part of the group chat. There were also several State Civil Apparatus (ASN) such as Ahmad Baihaki, one of the ASN Principal at an elementary school in Banjarmasin.
The second witness was Nur Rona Sari who gave testimony related to events at several polling stations (TPS). At TPS 12, Nur explained that two of his elderly families (grandparents) could not cast their votes because their voting rights had been used by other people. Even though they both registered in the Permanent Voters List (DPT) at the TPS. Then, Nur also stated that he was not free when he was voting because during the process, there were TPS officers spying on him.
The next witness, David Santoso, explained that there were violations on voting day. David was a mandate witness of the Petitioner at the time of recapitulation which held until past 10 PM. David attended and signed the attendance list at the recapitulation process. However, Banjarmasin KPU responded that David was indeed present in the recapitulation process, but not recognized as the mandate witness of the Petitioner.
According to David's testimony, he brought two proofs of the attendance list of voters which did not match C1 form, where the voter list was less than the total votes, namely at TPS 12 Teluk Tiram with an attendance list of 186 while there were 237 used ballots, and at TPS 22 Sungai Jingah with an attendance list of 165, while the ballots that were used were 250. The evidence was brought to the recapitulation plenary meeting held by KPU on December 15 at the Rattan Inn Banjarmasin hotel.
The Petitioner’s Expert
Bambang Eka Cahya Widodo as an expert from the Petitioners, explained about the voters who were not registered in the DPT but still exercised their voting rights.
"In accordance to the law, citizens who are 17 years old and have been married have the right to vote. To be able to exercise the right, Indonesian citizens must be registered as voters. The state guarantees constitutionally as long as the citizen is 17 years old or has been married, is registered in the DPT and is domiciled de facto at the TPS concerned, then the citizen has the right to vote in election, in this case the 2020 Banjarmasin Election," said Bambang Eka Cahya.
The expert continued that if a person is not registered in DPT yet he/she has an e-KTP and he/she domiciled in the community and neighbourhood unit (RT/RW) at the TPS, then the citizen can vote on condition that he/she must register first before voting at the TPS concerned and registered in Additional Voters List (DPTb) in order to be able to exercise their voting rights no later than one hour before the TPS closes. This is also in line with the Constitutional Court decision which guarantees the rights constitutionally.
Investigating Bambang Eka Cahya Widodo's statement, Aswanto asked questions related to State Civil Apparatus (ASN) or village heads who were proven to have committed violations in the election whether the consequences were re-voting (PSU).
"ASN and regional heads are prohibited from being involved because they are figures who control public resources, the budgets and the activities or programs. A ban has been made specifically so that ASN and village heads are not involved in the election process, including government officials, both central, regional, state-owned company (BUMN), and regional state-owned company (BUMD). The consequences of this involvement are not described definitively and clearly in the law,” explained Bambang Eka Cahya.
The Witnesses of Banjarmasin KPU
Banjarmasin KPU (Respondent) presented two witnesses, namely M. Syafrudin Akbar and Rian Mangara Sim Continnak, as well as one expert, Bayu Dwi Anggono. Rian Mangara Sim Continnak, Chairperson of Polling Stations Working Committee (KPPS) at TPS 012 Teluk Tiram Village, explained about the absence of Model C on the ballot box. This was discovered when he, together with the Supervisory Committee and the witnesses, prepared the complete documents and the ballot box prior to voting. Furthermore, he has coordinated this matter with the witnesses and supervisors to continue the voting process using the A3 Model KWK.
"There were as many as 412 DPT and 6 DPTb at my TPS, and 237 voting rights were used in Banjarmasin Mayor Election," said Rian. The witness continued that there was no special incident during the voting process and all witnesses, all candidate pairs signed the documents at that time.
The second witness was M. Syafrudin Akbar, a member of Banjarmasin KPU, in Technical Implementation Division. However, the justices could not provide an opportunity for Syafrudin to testify because he is part of the Respondent Party, which had a dispute with the Petitioner.
The Witnesses of Relevant Party
Ibnu Sina-Arifin (Relevant Party) presented two witnesses, namely Jasman and M. Noor Fanany. Both of them were mandate witnesses during the plenary session at Sub-district Election Committee (PPK) with KPU.
Jasman revealed that the process of vote count recapitulation by KPU was divided into three rooms where one of them was used for the vote counting process. Jasman further revealed to the Court that each recapitulation room was attended by representatives of mandate witnesses from each candidate pair.
"There was no special incident in the recapitulation process and all mandate witnesses participated in signing the sub-district result Model D Form," said Jasman in response to the question of the Respondent's Attorney.
The second witness, M. Noor Fanany who is a mandate witness of Ibnu Sina-Arifin at the sub-district level. "In the process of recapitulation at the sub-district level, none of the mandated witnesses objected to the results of the recapitulation," said the witness.
The Relevant Party also presented an expert, Maruarar Siahaan. According to him, violations are structured, systematic, and massive (TSM) which was argued in regional election result dispute case must be proven cumulatively.
"If the Petitioner's threshold exceeds what has been regulated by the Law, then usually the Petitioner will submit arguments for violations that are structured, systematic, and massive (TSM). These violations must be proven cumulatively. All elements of TSM must be proven so that the violation can be reported as a consideration for the Court in making decisions. Therefore, as what I have seen from the evidence presented and the data from KPU, I do not see the massive aspect argued by the Petitioner. "
Statement from Bawaslu
Banjarmasin Bawaslu stated that they had taken an action against the violation which the report was made by Ananda as Candidate Pair No. 4, on January 11, 2021. The report was addressed to South Kalimantan Bawaslu, then transferred and proceeded to Banjarmasin Bawaslu on January 13, 2021.
The report includes allegations of administrative violations and criminal violations. According to Bawaslu, administrative violations cannot be followed up because the elements of the violation are not fulfilled. Then, in the case of criminal violations, these allegations cannot be continued to the next stage because the formal requirements are not fulfilled.
"The formal requirement is that the report must be made in a maximum of seven days after the incident is discovered," said Mastawan.
Writer: Siti Rosmalina Nurhayati
Editor: Nur R
Uploader: Nur Budiman
Translator: SO
Editor: R.A. Indah Apriyanti
Managing Editor: Budi Wijayanto
Translation uploaded on 02/18/202113.45 WIB
Monday, March 01, 2021 | 20:52 WIB 277