The Petitioner’s witness Marthen Sayori conveying a statement at an evidentiary hearing for the 2024 legislative election results dispute for West Papua, Monday (5/27/2024). Photo by MKRI/Teguh.
JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) held a follow-up hearing on the 2024 House of Representatives (DPR), Provincial and Regency/City Regional Legislative Council (DPRD) election results dispute (PHPU), petitioned by the People’s Conscience Party (Hanura), on Monday, May 27, 2024. At the hearing for case No. 69-01-10-34/PHPU.DPR-DPRD-XXII/2024, the Petitioner’s expert Abdul Kahar Maranjaya, the Petitioner’s witness Marthen Sayori, and the Respondent’s witness Manokwari KPU (General Elections Commission) chairperson Christine Ruth Rumkabu presented their statements.
Abdul Kahar Maranjaya explained that fair and honest voting in elections is the means for constituents to communicate their aspirations to legislative candidates. Voters give their votes for candidates after examining their track records, integrity, capacity, and morality.
“Voters’ votes must be appreciated, respected because, in fact, the recapitulation carried out in stages must be based on the results obtained at the polling stations. Changes or transfers must be based on laws and regulations and should not be made based on the statement of a person or several people. Therefore, if a party’s votes are transferred to another party, they must be returned properly,” Maranjaya explained.
Party’s Votes Transferred
In front of Panel 2, which consists of Deputy Chief Justice Saldi Isra and Justices Ridwan Mansyur and Arsul Sani, chairman of Hanura’s Manokwari branch executive board (DPC) Richard Rumbarar explained that when the request for vote transfer was made, party witnesses had testified that there had been plenary meetings in the villages and districts regarding the vote acquisition results that were not problematic.
“Problems only arose at the KPU when PSI (Indonesian Solidarity Party) legislative candidate made a request to have his votes transferred [at the regency level]. Here (in Manokwari) the election was conducted directly, but how the vote transfer occurred is unknown. It is just that during the regency-level recapitulation, there was a transfer of Hanura’s votes to PSI. There were 541 votes for Hanura, and 200 votes were transferred to PSI,” Rumbarar said.
Marthen Sayori, a former member of the district election supervisory committee (Panwas), explained that 25 polling stations in 24 villages had agreed to the vote transfer at the district level plenary meeting. Hanura had 541 votes in Tanah Rubuh and there were no objections at the district plenary meeting. However, new changes occurred at the regency level, but the Petitioner did not file any objection. “We did not object, even though there was a commotion but we signed [the documents],” said Marthen.
Return and Takeover of Votes
West Papua Bawaslu (Elections Supervisory Body) through Elias Idie stated that there was a transfer of Hanura’s votes to PSI at TPS 01 of Umnum Village, where there were 298 voters in the final voters list (DPT) where PSI candidate received 294 votes while PKB (National Awakening Party) candidate received 4 votes. Then on February 19 when the results were read out at the polling station level, the PSI candidate consciously transfer 200 votes of theirs to Hanura. Hanura’s C-result form recorded 0 vote and the district polling committee mentioned that PSI mentioned this vote transfer. However, the district election committee (PPD) questioned and stated that there were no rules regarding such a transfer.
“In this case, the district election committee coordinated with the West Papua KPU but the owner of the votes (PSI) still believed in his constitutional right. As a result, the subdistrict election supervisory committee (Panwascam) could not take a stand and could only carry out the transfer by opening the C-result form and changing the number from 0 to 200 votes. On February 21, 2024, when the PSI candidate in the regency found out about the incident, they went to Tanah Rubuh District, and PKB and PSI showed the C-result form and said that the PSI candidate took back the votes that they had transferred to Hanura,” explained Idie.
Objection and Joint Correction
Christine Ruth Rumkabu explained about the open plenary recapitulation at the Manokwari regency level on March 4-6, which was attended by the chairman and members of Bawaslu, political party witnesses, DPD (Regional Representatives Council) witnesses, presidential and vice-presidential candidates’ witnesses, and district election supervisory committee. While for Tanah Rubuh District, the recapitulation was carried out on March 5 at 01:00 WIT and the results of the vote were read out in turn until completion. Then all 18 party witnesses were given time to scrutinize the numbers. At that time, Rumkabu continued, PKB witnesses objected to the results read out by Tanah Rubuh district election committee. It was said that there had been a transfer of 200 votes from PSI to Hanura. The PKB witness provided a statement letter from the PSI candidate confirming the transfer. At the same time, the PSI witness objected and requested that the votes be returned to PSI.
“Because the two witnesses objected, I asked the head of the district election committee about this and he confirmed that it had been done at the district level. I asked for a response from the district election supervisors and they also said the same thing. In short, after collecting all the information, corrections were made to the district D-result forms for Hanura’s votes from 541 to 341 votes and PSI’s from 31 to 231 votes. Afterwards, the district D-result forms were distributed to the 18 political party witnesses for them to reexamine the numbers. All parties signed and we gave the regency D-result forms to the political party witnesses and Bawaslu with a receipt,” Rumkabu explained.
Also read:
Hanura Questions Vote Transfer in 3 Sub Districts in Manokwari 3
KPU Refutes Vote Allegations from Hanura to PSI in Three Districts of Manokwari
At the preliminary hearing on Friday, May 3, the Petitioner mentioned that 200 of its votes were transferred to PSI in Warmare, South Manokwari, and Tanah Rubuh Subdistricts. Comparing data of Hanura’s and PSI’s vote acquisition in the 3 subdistricts, the Petitioner (Hanura) explained that it believed it had 1,677 votes, but according to the Respondent it only had 1,477 votes. PSI’s votes according to the Respondent were 654 and according to the Petitioner 454, so there was a difference of 200 votes. The Petitioner said at TPS 01 of Umnum Village, Rubuh Subdistrict, it experienced a vote reduction. PSI candidate Masimus Suga also stated that he had transferred votes at the polling station, then wanted to withdraw them. According to the Petitioner, the transfer of 200 votes to PSI was clearly unjustified because it violated Article 48 paragraph (6) letter f of KPU Decree No. 5 of 2024. Based on these arguments, the Petitioner requests that the Court determine the correct results according to the Petitioner for the Regency DPRD election for the electoral district of Manokwari 3 as follows: 1,677 votes for Hanura and 454 votes for PSI.
Author : Sri Pujianti.
Editor : Nur R.
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.
Monday, May 27, 2024 | 17:51 WIB 131