Dharojatun, liaison officer of DPD candidate No. 16 Nurdin Ranggabarani, attending an evidentiary hearing for the 2024 legislative election results dispute of North Maluku Regency, Wednesday (5/29/2024) on panel 2. Photo by MKRI/Teguh.
JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court held an evidentiary hearing of the election results dispute petitioned by West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) DPD (Regional Representatives Council) candidate No. 6 TGH. Lalu Gede Muhamad Ali Wirasakti Amir Murni. The case No. 05-18/PHPU.DPD-XXII/2024 was presided over by Deputy Chief Justice Saldi Isra and Constitutional Justices Ridwan Mansyur and Arsul Sani on Wednesday, May 29, 2024 in one of the Court’s panel courtrooms.
At the hearing, the Petitioner presented three witnesses: Dharojatun, M. Fihiruddin, and Syamsul Hadi; the Respondent presented Adi Gunawan and Kusnadi as witnesses; while the Relevant Party (DPD Candidate No. 11, Mirah Midadan Fahmid) presented Yakni Gifar Ilham as a witness and Daniel Zuchron as an expert.
Dharojatun, liaison officer of DPD candidate No. 16 Nurdin Ranggabarani, said that all parties have met the nomination requirements during the registration of DPD candidates. Evidently, since registration until election, no one made any objection, because it was announced that the candidates did not have to be residents of the electoral districts they run for in the election.
Another witness for the Petitioner, Fihiruddin, said the provincial recapitulation process was different from that in other regions. It started with a lot of excitement at the Sekotong Subdistrict and West Lombok Regency plenary meetings. At the provincial plenary meeting, Gerindra (Great Movement Party) witnesses said they had lost votes in Sekotong Subdistrict. At the same time, DPD witnesses also raised an objection to the KPU (General Elections Commission) chairperson and asked the NTB Bawaslu (Elections Supervisory Body) to open the DPD ballot boxes from Sekotong Subdistrict.
“Thirty-nine polling stations were considered problematic. [The request to open ballot boxes] was only granted for 37 polling stations because the C-plano forms were missing from two polling stations. Bawaslu then recommended that the ballot boxes be opened and we noticed that the C-result forms from 37 polling stations had sign of correction with corrective pens on the signatures and in the final results. Votes were given to Mirah, especially in Buwun Mas Village. Mirah’s votes on the C.result form had been written out as 27 votes, but was changed into 120 votes,” explained Fihiruddin.
Witness Syamsul Hadi stated that he followed the plenary meetings from the district to the provincial levels. “At that time, only Lembar and Sekotong Subdistricts had problems. In Sekotong Subdistrict, there was a difference of 4,007 votes. After opening the server to see the results from the provincial plenary session, the votes had been changed to 4,307 votes. In Bima Subdistrict, the same thing happened in Wera, Dompu, and Hu’u Subdistricts,” he said.
No Issue
Meanwhile, the Respondent’s (KPU) witness Adi Gunawan, who was Sekotong Subdistrict PPK (subdistrict election committee) member for the DPD election in the electoral district of NTB, explained that in the early stages of DPD registration, there were no problems, especially during nomination, voting, until the recapitulation stage at the polling station and subdistrict levels. “On February 17-24, 2024, recapitulation was conducted in stages for 9 villages and during the recapitulation, there were no problems, no input of C-incident forms. It was attended by party witnesses, DPD, and panwascam (subdistrict election supervisory committee). Then on February 24, 2024, the village recapitulation results as outlined in D-result forms were read out and certified in the subdistrict level. Finally, the PPK chairperson closed the certification plenary session without any objections,” said Adi.
Witnesses’ Objection
Witness for DPD candidate No. 20 Sabolah, Kusnadi, recounted the recapitulation process in NTB Province on March 5-8, 2024. Witness objections came from DPD candidate number 1 Sukisman Azmy.
“The objection was about the alleged vote inflation and reduction. There was also an objection from DPD candidate number 7 Lalu Rudy Irham Srigede, who alleged vote inflation and reduction. The objections from the two candidates were on the same location. In the event of objections, the NTB Provincial KPU would make revision. Bawaslu also suggested that data of the 39 polling stations in question be compared. The results were read out by the West Lombok Regency KPU,” Kusnadi said.
Bawaslu’s Apparatus
The Relevant Party’s expert Daniel Zuchron explained that election supervisors have two main tasks: prevention and taking action. Bawaslu must be able to make active and passive supervisory actions, that is, conducting searches and receiving reports on problems faced by complainants. In essence, the prevention of election violations by Bawaslu leads to an analysis of the potential for election violations, resulting in anticipatory plans.
“Bawaslu should have supervisory apparatus. The [supervision] result is an assessment whether [violations] can be prevented or addressed. The NTB Bawaslu’s supervisory report was internal data, not data issued from the results of supervision, on whether there is prevention or mitigation in the field. This is because voting, counting, and recapitulation are bound by strict procedures. So, in stages Panwas from polling stations up to the national level must be involved in a series of processes to determine the results based on the vote results,” he explained.
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DPD NTB Candidate Calls for Disqualification of Ineligible Contenders
KPU Confirms Mirah Midadan Fahmid Meets Requirements for NTB DPD Candidacy
At the preliminary hearing, the Petitioner requested the Court to annul General Elections Commission (KPU) Decree No. 360 of 2024 as it pertains to the DPD election results for DPD candidate number 11 Mirah Midadan Fahmid. This is due to violations in the NTB DPD election, which resulted in the disqualification of DPD candidate Mirah since the beginning of the nomination. Mirah allegedly registered as a voter outside the electoral district in question. She was registered at TPS (polling station) 32 of Biring Village, Roman, Manggala, Makassar City. As such, she was not eligible to run for DPD. In this case, the Respondent never made any corrections.
The Petitioner argued that the votes were obtained for irresponsible reasons because there were many corrections in Mirah Midadan Fahmid’s recapitulation tabulation. Related to this argument, the Petitioner submitted an example of vote acquisition as stated on the West Lombok Regency D-result form where Mirah obtained 36,944 votes, with the final total of 265,246 votes. Meanwhile, the Petitioner received 18,944 votes with final acquisition being only 265,126 votes.
Author : Sri Pujianti
Editor : Nur R.
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.
Wednesday, May 29, 2024 | 15:34 WIB 96