The Petitioner’s legal counsel at a hearing for the legislative election results dispute of Intan Jaya Regency, Monday (4/29/2024). Photo by MKRI/Bayu.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) held a preliminary hearing of the election results disputes (PHPU) for the election of candidates of the Regional Legislative Council (DPRD) for the Intan Jaya Regency electoral district (dapil) 1 on Monday morning, April 29, 2024. Case No. 279-01-11-36/PHPU.DPR-DPRD-XXII/2024 was presided over by Constitutional Justices Arief Hidayat (panel chair), Anwar Usman and Enny Nurbaningsih. This case was filed by the Change Movement Party of Indonesia (Garuda), represented by chairman Ahmad Ridha Sabana and Yohana Murtika.

In its petition, the Petitioner alleged there had been administrative violations and vote elimination in the legislative election on February 19, 2024. The alleged violations occurred in two districts, Sugapa and Hitadipa in Intan Jaya Regency. The Petitioner also pointed out that the implementation of election in Intan Jaya Regency using the noken system had led to the unavailability of the C1 plano forms and voting equipment supported by the Intan Jaya Regency General Elections Commission Regulation (KPU) and the district election committee (PPD). The documents were found in the hands of the National Mandate Party (PAN), giving rise to suspicions of vote manipulation.

Furthermore, the Petitioner’s legal counsel, Abdul Haris, told the Court that there had been a significant data collection error, with evidence that Garuda’s votes in Sugapa and Hitadipa Districts had changed drastically from 4,666 votes to zero vote.

“In Intan Jaya there are 2 districts, Sugapa and Hitadipa. Our party’s votes are zero, even though in actuality, we received 4,666 votes,” said Abdul Haris.

The Petitioner also asserted that the Intan Jaya Regency KPU had ignored the Elections Supervisory Body’s (Bawaslu) recommendation and committed an election violation by holding a district-level plenary meeting without the presence of representatives from all districts, which was a violation of KPU Regulation (PKPU) No. 10 of 2023.

For this incident, both the Hitadipa District election supervisory committee (Panwas) and the Intan Jaya Regency Bawaslu have recommended action, but there was no response from the Intan Jaya Regency KPU.

“Regarding the results in the field, there has been a recommendation from the district election supervisory committee to recapitulate according to facts in the field, but the Respondent, KPU Intan Jaya, did not heed it,” he said.

He explained that the reduction in the party’s votes was an attempt to transfer votes to other parties such as PAN, the Great Movement Party (Gerindra), and the Party of Functional Groups (Golkar). “There were additional votes for PAN, Golkar, and Gerindra,” he added.

On the basis of the arguments of electoral fraud, in the petition, the Petitioner asked the Court to cancel the KPU’s decree No. 360 of 2024 and certify the vote acquisition as claimed by the Petitioner, namely 4,666 votes.

In addition, the Petitioner also asked the Court to disqualify several candidates for the Intan Jaya Regency DPRD Dapil 1 who committed alleged criminal acts of coercion and/or kidnapping of the chairman of Hitadipa District election committee.

“Our suspicion is that the disappearance of the Hitadipa PPD chairperson was carried out by two candidates from PAN, so we ask that these candidates be disqualified,” said Abdul Haris.

Author         : Adam Ilyas
Editor          : Lulu Anjarsari P.
PR              : Tiara Agustina
Translator    : Intana Selvira Fauzi, Yuniar W. (RA)

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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