The Respondent’s legal counsel Sigit Nurhadi Nugraha delivering a statement at a follow-up hearing for the 2024 legislative election results dispute of North Sumatera Province, Monday (5/13/2024). Photo by MKRI/Ifa.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — The General Elections Commission (KPU) confirmed that during the tiered recapitulation, the Petitioner did not raise any objections during the recapitulation process at the polling station level up to East Medan Subdistrict. This shows that the results of the recapitulation up to East Medan Subdistrict have been recognized and approved by the Petitioner, said Sigit Nurhadi Nugraha at the hearing for the legislative election results dispute of candidates for Medan City DPRD (Regional Legislative Council) on Monday, May 13, 2024 in the plenary courtroom of the Constitutional Court (MK). The case No. 199-01-02 02/PHPU.DPR-DPRD-XXII/2024 was filed by the Great Movement Party (Gerindra).

At the hearing presided over by Chief Justice Suhartoyo and Constitutional Justices Daniel Yusmic P. Foekh and M. Guntur Hamzah, Sigit explained that during the vote count at the polling stations (TPS) and at the subdistrict level, there were no findings and objections from political party witnesses as argued in the petition.

“At the time of the city recapitulation in Medan City, at recapitulation of the East Medan Subdistrict, there were no objections from the witnesses, but after the recapitulation for the East Medan Subdistrict schedule was closed, reports emerged about alleged vote shift as petitioned by the Petitioner in the a quo case,” explained Sigit.

Then, he continued, on the objection concerning the vote shift alleged by the Petitioner, the Medan City Bawaslu (Elections Supervisory Body) had provided recommendations to follow up on alleged violations on the day of the recapitulation of the vote count of the election participants. In its recommendation, the Medan City Bawaslu did not mention specific actions that the KPU must take.

“Likewise, the time to make revision was very limited and it was not possible to open the ballot boxes for the East Medan Subdistrict. Therefore, the votes in the Medan City recapitulation were used in the national recapitulation,” he stressed.

Payung Harahap from Bawaslu responded to the petition’s subject matter. Medan City Bawaslu, he said, has corrected the data discrepancies.

“After the Medan City Bawaslu examined the polling stations mentioned, there were discrepancies between the subdistrict C-result forms, C-result copies, and D-result forms. The Medan City Bawaslu submitted suggestions for revision to the Medan City KPU so that it could correct the discrepancies… and until the issuance of the minutes of the stipulation of the Medan City KPU related to the recapitulation of vote acquisition, the Medan City KPU did not follow up on the suggestions for revision submitted by the Medan City Bawaslu,” he said.

Regarding this problem, continued Harahap, violations shown from findings have been handled.

No Objection from Petitioner

Lae Luhung Girsang, a representative from the National Awakening Party (PKB) as the Relevant Party on this case, made a statement of objection to Gerindra’s petition and rejected all arguments in the petition.

From all stages in the vote counting process at polling stations until the stipulation of the valid votes of political parties at the Medan City level, the Petitioner had no objection to the results of the 2024 general election held on February 14, 2024 and the Petitioner accepted the results determined by the Respondent by signing the results of the vote recapitulation at the subdistrict level up to Medan City.

The Petitioner only seeks to reduce the Relevant Party’s votes by not providing other facts about errors it had benefitted from. Therefore, the Relevant Party appealed to the Court to provide a decision that adheres to the principle of justice based on divine value.

The Relevant Party found that Petitioner’s votes had increased by 156. If its votes were reduced as much, the petition would be irrelevant since it would not have change the results of the Medan City DPRD election in the electoral district of Medan City 3, which the Relevant Party had won. Therefore, the Relevant Party requests the Court to reject the petition in its entirety.

Author              : Utami Argawati
Editor               : Lulu Anjarsari P.
PR                    : Andhini S.F.
Translator         : Jessica Rivena Meilania, 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.

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