Witnesses taking oath to testify at an evidentiary hearing for the 2024 legislative election results dispute of Papua Pegunungan Province, Friday (5/31/2024). Photo by MKRI/Ifa.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) held a follow-up hearing on the DPRD (Regional Legislative Council) election results dispute (PHPU) for Papua Pegunungan Province on Friday, May 31, 2024 in the plenary courtroom. The Case No. 185-02-16-37/PHPU.DPR-DPRD-XXII/2024 was petitioned by Papua Pegunungan Province DPRD candidate Agus Hikman from the United Indonesia Party (Perindo).

At the hearing chaired by Chief Justice Suhartoyo, the KPU (General Elections Commission) as the Respondent presented Arkilaus Mulai, a member of the Popugoba District election committee (PPD). He said that Popugoba District has four villages and two candidates, Iwan Asso from Perindo and Agus Himan from the Nusantara Awakening Party (PKN).

“In four villages, Iwan obtained 1,104 votes, while Agus got 4,736 votes. After being recapitulated, [the votes] was submitted to the Jayawijaya KPU. At the regency level, 5,040 votes went to Iwan Asso from Perindo while Agus’s dropped to 800 votes,” Mulai said.

He said the votes were changed by three subdistrict election committee (PPD) members who had now been dismissed. They transferred the votes to Perindo. “After that, the PKN witness complained to the district election supervisory committee (Pandis). The data in the supervisory committee is also the same as Iwan Asso received 1,104 votes and Agus Himan from PKN got 4,736 votes,” he explained.

Meanwhile, the Petitioner’s witness Petrus Asso, one of the dismissed subdistrict election committee members, explained that the recapitulation process had gone well. However, the district recapitulation was temporarily suspended.

“At the regency plenary session, when I participated and entered the meeting, there was no information that the subdistrict election committee had been dismissed, so we left,” he explained. Moreover, he explained the vote acquisition before he and other members dismissed. He emphasized that the votes for Iwan Asso amounted to 5,840 votes.

Also read:

Perindo Disputes Election in Jayawijaya 4 to Court

KPU Confirms No Transfer of Perindo Votes to PKN in Jayawijaya 4

The Petitioner argued that the loss of his votes was due to the replacement of the district election committees (PPD) in the Jayawijaya 4 electoral district, including in Popugoba District, which resulted in negligence/errors in vote counting by the PPD at the district level.

Apart from that, the Petitioner also argues that 3,936 votes were lost for Perindo legislative member Iwan Asso due to PPD errors/negligence at the district level.

Author              : Utami Argawati
Editor                : Lulu Anjarsari P.
PR                    : Fauzan Febriyan
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.

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