KPU commissioner Mochammad Afifuddin and legal counsel Pither Ponda Barany at a follow-up hearing for the 2024 legislative election results dispute of South Papua, Monday (5/13/2024). Photo by MKRI/Ifa.
JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) held a follow-up hearing on 2024 election results dispute of the DPR (House of Representatives), Provincial and Regency/City DPRD/DPRK (Regional Legislative Council) for South Papua Province on on Monday, May 13, 2024 in the plenary courtroom. The case No. 271-01-03-35/PHPU.DPR-DPRD-XXII/2024 was filed by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).
At the hearing, the General Elections Commission (KPU) as Respondent, represented by Pither Ponda Barany, explained that the plenary meeting at the Asmat Regency level to hear the recapitulation at the district level was held on March 3-7, 2024 and ran smoothly.
“At the plenary meeting of vote counting recapitulation at the regency level, the district election committee (PPD) of Akat District and Sorep District read out the results of the district-level recapitulation on March 6, 2024 to March 7, 2024,” he said.
According to Pither, there were objections from witnesses of several political parties: the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the National Mandate Party (PAN), the Party of Functional Groups (Golkar), the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), and the National Democratic Party (NasDem), because there were differences in the votes read out by the Akat District PPD with the results as recorded in videos and voice notes by the witnesses.
Furthermore, the Akat District PPD was recommended by the Regency KPU with the approval of the Bawaslu (Elections Supervisory Body) and political party witnesses to correct votes for PAN, PKS, NasDem, PDI-P, and Golkar by comparing data. From the results of the data comparison, Golkar and PDI-P stated that their problem was an internal party problem. Meanwhile, PAN demanded that its votes be returned from 714 under the results of the district-level plenary hearing in Akat District and Sorep District on February 26, 2024.
Witnesses’ Objections
Pither stressed that after hearing objections from the witnesses and PAN’s witnesses, the Asmat Regency KPU contacted the head of the PPD and the Akat District PPD operator, but they could not be found because they had left Agats City from March 7, 2024.
Thus, during the plenary recapitulation at the South Papua Province level on March 1, 2024, the Asmat Regency KPU read out the D incident/objection forms submitted by PDI-P witnesses. However, the objections were not addressed by the South Papua Provincial Bawaslu.
“The data correction in question was carried out by writing the number of votes under the subdistrict/district D-result form into the regency D-result form and it was approved by all party witnesses,” Pither explained.
Votes Revision
Meanwhile, Bawaslu, represented by South Papua Provincial Bawaslu member Felix Tethool said that the Petitioner’s argument of a difference in vote acquisition between the Petitioner and the National Mandate Party of 6,498 votes, which was determined by the Asmat Regency KPU, is not true.
The process was not in line with standard mechanism and procedure and there were indications of very serious and structured, systematic, and massive violations by the Asmat Regency KPU, who determined the election results not based on the revision to the subdistrict D-result form at the plenary meeting and refused to correct the vote acquisition of PAN and correct PDI-P’s objection.
“The Akat District PPD carried out a plenary recapitulation at the district level for Akat District and Sor Ep District by reading out the results of the vote acquisition of political parties and regency DPRD candidates of Akat District and Sor Ep District orally. They did not share the documents that were read out to the Akat District Panwaslu and political party witnesses,” said Felix.
In addition, the Akat District PPD did not provide an opportunity for the Akat District Panwaslu and political party witnesses who were present to object to the results and nor did they distribute the regency/city subdistrict-DPRD D-result forms to the Akat District Panwaslu and party witnesses.
Felix continued that based on the recommendations of the South Papua Provincial Bawaslu, the Asmat Regency KPU had made data revisions on March 17, 2024, at the South Papua Province KPU hall, witnessed by political party witnesses from Gelora, Nasdem, PDI-P, and PKB and the Asmat Regency Bawaslu. At the plenary meeting, the PKB witness did not sign the minute of the revision while Gelora, Nasdem, and PDI-P witnesses signed the document.
Also read: PDI-P Questions Suspicious Votes in Asmat
Petitioner’s Arguments Far-fetched
At the same hearing, PAN as the Relevant Party, represented by Muhammad Wahyu, said that the Petitioner’s argument that the Relevant Party only obtained 373 votes, causing a margin of 221 votes in Sor Ep District, was incorrect and far-fetched.
“The Petitioner stated again that the vote acquisition of the Relevant Party based on the subdistrict D-result form before the correction was 594 votes, while based on that after correction was 373 votes, thus there were 221 additional votes for the Relevant Party,” Wahyu said.
Wahyu continued that the Relevant Party suspected that the votes referred to by the Petitioner was obtained from a corrupted regency/city subdistrict-DPRD D-result form, not that which was issued by the Respondent.
Wahyu added that in reality, it was not the Petitioner’s votes that had been reduced but the Relevant Party’s votes, originally 714 votes then reduced to 594 votes.
“So, the total votes of the Relevant Party’s that were lost were 120 votes on the ground of excess final voters. The reduction was carried out during data correction by the Akat District election committee (PPD) at the Wiyata Mandala building. This was stated in the chronological report of the Asmat Regency KPU dated April 26, 2024,” he said.
PDI-P disputes the results of the 2024 legislative election of South Papua Province to the Court, which affect the acquisition of DPR, Provincial DPRD/DPRP, Regency/City DPRD/DPRK seats in the electoral district of Asmat I in South Papua Province. PDI-P argues that the vote inflation occurred since the recapitulation at the district level carried out by the PPD, where the subdistrict D-result form was not distributed to witnesses on the same day, witnesses’ objections and reports were not followed up, data/documents approved in the plenary meeting was not used, and recapitulation data during the subdistrict plenary meeting was not revised.
Author : Utami Argawati
Editor : Lulu Anjarsari P.
PR : Andhini S.F.
Translator : M. Ariva Aswin Bahar, Yuniar W.
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.
Monday, May 13, 2024 | 21:49 WIB 80