A ruling hearing for the 2024 legislative election results dispute presided over by all nine constitutional justices, Wednesday (5/22/2024). Photo by MKRI/Teguh.

---

JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) delivered a ruling on a petition for the 2024 DPR-DPRD (House of Representatives-Regional Legislative Council) election results dispute for case No. 240-01-12-37/PHPU.DPR-DPRD-XXII/2024 for Papua Pegunungan Province. The Court ruled that the petition by PAN (National Mandate Party) was unclear and vague.

“[The Court] declares the Petitioner’s petition inadmissible,” said Chief Justice Suhartoyo delivering the verdict in the plenary courtroom on Wednesday, May 22, 2024.

In its legal consideration delivered by Constitutional Justice M. Guntur Hamzah, the Court asked whether the number of votes desired by the Petitioner in Mugi District were 7,386, 5,240, or 5,213. The Court found a contradiction in the petitums, where petitum number 3 the Petitioner requested the Court to determine the Petitioner’s votes in Yahukimo 3, Mugi District at 5,213 votes at 25 polling stations. Whereas in petitum number 4, it requested the Court to determine 7,386 votes for it in the Yahukimo Regency DPRD election.

“Therefore, the Court believes that the two petitions are cumulative and not alternative, confusing as to how many votes the Petitioner wants. Moreover, in petitum number 2, the Petitioner asks the Court to cancel the General Elections Commission Decree No. 360/KPU/III/2024, where there was an error in the mention of the number of the decree,” said Justice Guntur.

The Court believes that the positas as well as posita and petitum were contradictory (contradictio in terminis). Thus, there was no doubt for the Court to declare the petition obscure. Based on the legal considerations as outlined above, the Court asserted that the Petitioner’s petition was obscure and therefore the responses by the Respondent and Bawaslu (Elections Supervisory Body) and the subject matter of the petition were not considered further.

Also read:

Got Zero Vote in DPRD Election in Yahukimo 3, PAN Goes to Court

KPU: PAN’s Claim of Vote Reduction Not Supported by Evidence

In its petition, the Petitioner claimed to strongly object to the results of the vote count in Yahukimo 3, especially Mugi District, as determined by the Respondent (KPU). The Petitioner alleged that this was due to fraudulent practices and/or violations committed by the KPU to the detriment of PAN. According to the Petitioner, the results of its votes in Yahukimo 3 were 7,386 votes. However, all of these votes were transferred to one candidate from another party by the Respondent during the district-level recapitulation.

The vote acquisition in Yahukimo 3 was based on the noken or ikat voting system. PAN candidate Amsal Siep received the most votes with 2,809 votes. Three other candidates from different parties —Timothy Siep, Hanes Siap, and Yotam Siep—gave their votes to PAN, so the accumulated PAN votes in Mugi District were 5,240 votes.

Meanwhile, Agus Asso from the National Democratic Party (NasDem), who obtained 2,146 votes was not willing to transfer his votes to PAN. However, during the district-level recapitulation, the Petitioner argued there was a transfer of votes to Agus Asso. Therefore, PAN only had 5,213 votes. However, in the end, PAN’s votes were purged to zero.

Author              : Mimi Kartika
Editor               : Lulu Anjarsari P.
PR                    : Fauzan Febriyan
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.

---