Golkar Witness Explains the Additional Votes of Gerindra and Aceh Party

The Petitioner’s witness Abdurrahmad Dasda while attending a hearing for the 2024 legislative election results dispute of Aceh Province, Wednesday (29/5/2024). Photo by MKRI/Bayu.

JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) held a follow-up examination hearing for the 2024 legislative election results dispute for case No. 20-01-04-01/PHPU.DPR-DPRD-XXII/2024 on Wednesday, May 29, 2024. The case was petitioned by the Party of Functional Groups (Golkar) for the DPRA (Aceh Legislative Council) election dispute of Aceh Province in the Electoral District of Aceh VI.

The hearing was presided over by Constitutional Justices Arief Hidayat (panel chair), Anwar Usman, and Enny Nurbaningsih on panel 3. Golkar as the Petitioner, the General Elections Commission (KPU) as the Respondent, the Relevant Party from the Great Movement Party (Gerindra), and Bawaslu (Elections Supervisory Body) attended this evidentiary hearing.

Golkar’s Witnesses

The Petitioner’s first witness (Golkar Party), Muhammad Nur who was a mandate witness in Peureulak Sub-district, East Aceh, explained the process of the plenary meeting. He testified that there were no problems found during the plenary meeting. However, a problem occurred when the recap results were printed on the D. Form Result.

“The problem that arose was because the party witnesses were only allowed to see the vote acquisition of their party and were not allowed to see the vote acquisition of other parties,” he explained.

Furthermore, he said, according to the D. Result form, Golkar obtained 1,907 votes. Because of this problem, he did not sign the document during the plenary meeting. He only knew Gerindra's vote results after checking the C. Recap form. Gerindra's votes in the recapitulation of C. Result form was 718 votes, and in the D. Result form 832 votes recorded. For Golkar, the votes recorded in C. Result and D. Result forms are the same, namely 1,907 votes. Then the Aceh Party's 9,847 votes were recorded in C. Result form and 13,769 votes were recorded in D. Result form.

The Petitioner’s second witness, Abdurrahman Darda who was a Representative Coordinator of East Aceh Regency from Golkar said,

“As the coordinator, I saw, heard, and received reports from mandated witnesses in the field from 8 sub-districts that there had been vote inflation/addition carried out by two parties, which were the Gerindra and Aceh Parties,”.

He also received reports from mandate witnesses in East Peureulak, West Peureulak, Rantau Peureulak, Simpang Jernih, and Birem Bayeun sub-districts in East Aceh. The additional votes for Gerindra and Aceh Party occurred in the printed D. Result form.

The Petitioner’s third witness, Teuku Oktaranda who was a mandated witness in East Aceh Regency, participated in the entire election process from the first day to the last day. He said that in each sub-district he served in, there were problems regarding the additional votes. The additional votes occurred in voters who did not vote. This happened because the unused ballots were voted on and the votes were added to the D. Result form.

The Petitioner’s fourth witness, Muhammad Iqbal DJ as a mandated witness in the plenary meeting at the provincial level. The plenary meeting process for 22 regencies went well and the Aceh Independent Election Commission (KIP) included the witness representatives in every decision-making. However, he said that the problem occurred during the discussion of East Aceh Regency. Based on the data reported by witnesses in East Aceh, there were many differences due to vote inflation and it could not be resolved at the regency level, so the witnesses reported it to the provincial level.

“During the East Aceh Regency plenary meeting, we had asked the committees (KIP) to recheck by matching the unmatched data, but the Meeting Chair from the Aceh KIP seemed to be rushed to finish the meeting. Bawaslu itself was not given the opportunity to speak at the Plenary Meeting. The Meeting Chair only ordered the meeting participants who objected to fill out an objection form and ended the meeting,“ he said.

KPU Witnesses

The Respondent’s first witness, Irham Teguh as a subdistrict election committee (PPK) member of Peureulak Regency. Based on his testimony, the recapitulation process was carried out in the sub-district office hall. The plenary meeting was conducted using a projector screen so all participants could see all the data presented.

The Respondent’s second witness, M. Hanafiah is the chairman of the PPK (subdistrict election committee) in Idi Rayeuk Sub-district, which was one of the objects at issue in this case. He said that the plenary meeting in Idi Rayeuk sub-district was conducted simultaneously in two panels because it had the second-highest number of polling stations (TPS) in Aceh. At the end of the recapitulation, all witnesses present signed the results document, including witnesses from the Golkar and Aceh Party.

The Respondent’s third witness, Muksal Mina the chairman of the PPK in Birem Bayeum Sub-district. According to him, Golkar and Aceh Party votes were consistent between the C. Result and D. Result forms. There was no additional vote as witnessed by the Petitioner's witness.

The Respondent’s fourth witness, Yusri from the KIP of East Aceh said that the mandate witness assigned by Golkar who attended the plenary meeting was different from the name given by Golkar in the hearing. The witness Oktaranda, who according to Golkar was the Golkar's mandate witness, was not a witness at the plenary meeting. In fact, Oktaranda is a candidate from Golkar.

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Golkar Witness Explains the Additional Votes of Gerindra and Aceh Party