The Respondent with its legal counsel attending another hearing of Case No. 132-02-02-01/PHPU.DPR-DPRD-XXII/2024 on the 2024 Legislative Election Results Dispute (PHPU) to hear responses from Relevant Parties and Elections Supervisory Body (Bawaslu), Tuesday (5/7/2024) MKRI/Bayu.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) – The General Election Commission (KPU) refuted vote inflation allegation on one of the candidates for the Regional Representative Council (DPRD) of East Aceh, Electoral District (Dapil) East Aceh 3 in Peunaron Sub-district, East Aceh Regency. This was disclosed by KPU’s (Respondent) legal counsel, Imamul Muttaqin, during another hearing of the 2024 Election Results Dispute (PHPU) for the members of the DPRD of East Aceh, Dapil East Aceh 3. The case was filed by Edi Darmansyah, a candidate for the DPRD of East Aceh.

The hearing for Case No. 132-02-02-01/PHPU.DPR-DPRD-XXII/2024 was held in Panel 3 Courtroom on Tuesday (5/7/2024) presided over by Constitutional Justices Arief Hidayat, Anwar Usman, and Enny Nurbaningsih.

During this hearing, the Respondent responded to the discrepancy in the vote margins stipulated by the Respondent, totaling 2,216, with the number of votes believed to be accurate by the Petitioner, totaling 2,260. Meanwhile, according to the Petitioner, a candidate from the same party as the Petitioner named Samin Alam Tanoga should have acquired only 1,224 votes, but was stipulated by the Respondent to have acquired 2,311 votes. According to the Petitioner, this discrepancy was caused by a vote inflation of 1,087 votes in Peunaron Sub-district, which should have been only 647 votes, due to the occurrence of vote inflation in the regency to 1,735 votes. This inflation was carried out by replacing the original D Model certificates from Peunaron Sub-district with altered photocopies by the Respondent.

Subsequently, the KPU stated in its response that the Petitioner did not have legal standing to file the petition on the grounds that the petition filed did not correspond to the essence of the petition. Respondent’s legal counsel, Imamul Muttaqin, mentioned that the petition filed was a political party petition, but the content of the petition related to internal party discrepancies of the Petitioner. Furthermore, Imamul Muttaqin mentioned that the Petitioner's petition was obscure. At the beginning of the petition, it was stated that the Petitioner's petition was a political party petition, but on the following pages, the petitioner was mentioned as Edi Darmansyah.

Imamul Muttaqin also pointed out that the petition did not fully specify the location (locus) of the alleged vote inflation. According to the KPU, the Petitioner's allegations could not be entirely justified because there was actually no vote manipulation. "The Respondent rejects all of the Petitioner's allegations," said Imamul Muttaqin.

Following the explanation provided, the Respondent requested the Court to decide on the exception, granting the Respondent's exception in its entirety. As for the substance of the case, dismissing all of the Petitioner's requests and confirming the correctness of KPU Decree No. 360 of 2024.

In its statement, Bawaslu stated that the vote acquisition for the Great Movement Party (Gerindra) was 77 votes. Meanwhile, for the candidate Sulaiman, it was 20 votes, Edi Darmansyah acquired 52 votes, Ratnawati acquired 14 votes, Muhammad Ramli acquired 31 votes, Samin Alam Tanoga acquired 648 votes, and Alimatusadiah acquaried 3 votes. Furthermore, Bawaslu mentioned that there were two versions of the D-Result. Bawaslu stated that the correct D-Result according to Bawaslu was the first version. "The correct version according to Bawaslu is the first D-Result," explained Safwani. (*)

Author: Adam Ilyas

Editor: Lulu Anjarsari P.

PR:  Tiara Agustina

Translator: Naomi Andrea Zebua

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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