The Petitioner’s legal counsel Yunico Syahrir attending a ruling hearing for the 2024 legislative election results dispute of West Java Province, Tuesday (5/21/2024). Photo by MKRI/Ifa.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) dismissed the 2024 DPR/DPRD (House of Representatives/Regional Legislative Council) election results dispute case No. 229-01-02-12/PHPU.DPR-DPRD-XXII/2024 on Tuesday, May 21, 2024 in the plenary courtroom. The case was petitioned by a DPRD candidate for the electoral district of West Java III from the Great Movement Party (Gerindra).

“[The Court] declares the Petitioner’s petition inadmissible,” said Chief Justice Suhartoyo alongside the other eight constitutional justices.

In its legal considerations, delivered by Constitutional Justice Daniel Yusmic P. Foekh, the Court asserts that the disputed votes, which were the remaining votes from a seat. In explaining alleged inflation of the Nasdem’s (National Democratic Party) vote tally by the Respondent, the Petitioner did not include the its own tally version and the Respondent’s. The Petitioner only argued it had received 106,934 votes while Nasdem received 105,558 votes, with a margin of 11,200 votes.

“After the Court compared the votes obtained by the Petitioner and Nasdem in the petition with attachment III of the KPU Decree No. 360 of 2024, it turned out that the total number of votes obtained by the Petitioner in the electoral district of West Java IX were 320,803 votes, while Nasdem’s were 116,758 votes. Therefore, it is not clear where the votes listed by the Petitioner came from because they were not followed by a clear and adequate explanation,” said Justice Foekh.

Moreover, he continued, the Petitioner also did not explain or provide clear comparisons, for example of the subdistrict DPR D-result forms and the regency/city DPR D-result forms, so that the origins of the votes would have been clear to show vote inflation for Nasdem.

In addition, Justice Foekh said, there was a discrepancy between the posita and petitum. First, the Petitioner disputed the vote acquisition in 53 subdistricts in Majalengka Regency and Subang Regency. However, it only described 51 subdistricts: 25 in Majalengka Regency and 26 in Subang Regency. Second, the Petitioner asked to that the General Elections Commission (KPU) Decree No. 360 of 2024 be annulled as it pertains to the DPR election for the electoral district of West Java IX, then asked for the correct vote acquisition for West Java IX: 106,934 votes for the Petitioner and 105,558 votes for Nasdem.

“Such a petitum is contradictory to the posita because even if the Petitioner’s petition was granted, the vote acquisition requested by the Petitioner would be much smaller than the vote acquisition determined by the Respondent,” Justice Foekh explained.

According to the Court, the Petitioner’s petition did not meet the qualifications as intended in Article 75 of the Constitutional Court Law and Article 11 paragraph (2) letter b points 4 and 5 of the Constitutional Court Regulation (PMK) No. 2 of 2023. This is because there was a lack of clarity regarding the error in the vote counting results announced by the Respondent and the correct counting results according to the Petitioner and there is a discrepancy between the reasons for the petition (posita) and those requested to the Court (petitum). Moreover, the petitum was contradictory. Therefore, there was no doubt for the Court to declare the Respondent’s exception and the Relevant Party’s exception legally warranted relating to the tally error announced by the Respondent and the correct results according to the Petitioner not being clearly explained. Thus, according to the Court, the Petitioner’s petition was vague.

Also read:

Gerindra Asks Revote in 53 Subdistricts in Majalengka, Subang

KPU Denies Alleged Vote Inflation of NasDem in Majalengka and Subang

At the preliminary hearing, the Petitioner argued that NasDem’s votes were inflated in 53 subdistricts in Majalengka Regency and Subang Regency.

This has resulted in shifts and/or additions to NasDem’s votes, alleged to have occurred out at every level of recapitulation across 53 subdistricts in Majalengka Regency and Subang Regency based on the result of observation carried out in the process of recapitulating the DPR election results for West Java IX.

Author              : Utami Argawati
Editor                : Lulu Anjarsari P.
PR                    : Fauzan Febriyan
Translator         : Sedanti Anjali Putri, 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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