Lieus Sungkharisma conveying his arguments in the judicial review hearing of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections virtually, Monday (1/17/2022). Photo by Humas MK.

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Monday, January 17, 2022 | 17:58 WIB

JAKARTA, Public Relations—The provision on presidential threshold in Article 222 of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections (Election Law) was challenged again in the Constitutional Court (MK). The case No. 5/PUU-XX/2022 was filed by Lieus Sungkharisma, who at the preliminary hearing on Monday, January 17, 2022, argued that as an individual citizen he has the right to vote in the presidential elections.

At the hearing presided over by Constitutional Justices Arief Hidayat (chair), Saldi Isra, and Manahan M. P. Sitompul, Lieus said virtually that Article 222 of the Election Law, which requires that the presidential candidate tickets are nominated by a political party (or a coalition thereof) that has won at least 20% of DPR (House of Representatives) seats or 25% of national valid votes, was in violation of Article 6 paragraph (2) of the 1945 Constitution.

“We contested like enemies, where in 2019 there was only two candidates. I was a victim because as I was campaigning for [candidate] number 2, I was arrested for treason. I believe I was right. I received such an accusation because the clash between the two groups were very hard. Why were there only two [candidates]? I noted that there were no other candidates. Not that we didn’t want to observe other candidates, so the clash was too strong. Now, for 2024, 82% of the group supporting [current President Joko Widodo] consists of seven political parties, while the two other parties cannot [meet the threshold],” said Lieus, who appeared before the Court without representation.

In his petition, he explained using a systematic-grammatical interpretation on the requirements as referred to in Article 6A paragraph (2) of the 1945 Constitution, which provides restrictions on the requirements for president-vice president candidates. Such restrictions were proposed by political parties or coalition thereof that participated in the elections and proposed before the elections.

As such, the presidential threshold does not meet those requirements as Article 6A paragraph (2) of the 1945 Constitution has regulated the requirements. The Petitioner believes that the article has, in a conceptual normative construction, declared the right to vote and right to be candidate as citizens’ constitutional rights. As such, he added, the unconstitutionality of Article 222 of the Election Law correlates with the violation of his constitutional right to have as many options of presidential candidate tickets in the 2024 election.

The Petitioner also argued that a constitutional right cannot be abolished or reduced by a lower legislation (law). As such, Article 222 of the Election Law has eliminated the constitutional rights of political parties contesting in the election and is clearly against the 1945 Constitution, especially Article 6A paragraph (2). With the House election taking place simultaneously in 2024, mutatis mutandis the presidential threshold is no longer relevant because it was based on the votes of voters who have passed away.

Therefore, in the petitum, the Petitioner requested that the Court grant his petition and declare Article 222 of the Election Law unconstitutional and not legally binding.

Justices’ Advice

In response to the petition, Constitutional Justice Manahan M. P. Sitompul advised the Petitioner to complete the Court’s jurisdiction by adding the latest Constitutional Court Law. He also said the Petitioner must elaborate his legal standing as a citizen with the right to vote.

Meanwhile, Constitutional Justice Saldi Isra requested that the Petitioner explain his constitutional impairment. “Without any impairment, (the petition) cannot be granted. Explain your factual impairment, or at least the potential one, clearly,” he stressed.

Before concluding the session, Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat informed the Petitioner that he had 14 workdays to revise the petition, which must be submitted to the Registrar’s Office by Monday, January 31, 2022.

Writer        : Utami Argawati
Editor        : Lulu Anjarsari P.
PR            : M. Halim
Translator  : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

Translation uploaded on 01/18/2022 11:17 WIB

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

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