Court Rejects NasDem’s Petition for North Sumatera II

The Petitioner’s legal counsels Qodirun and Syarwani attending a ruling hearing on the 2024 legislative election results dispute for North Sumatera Province, Friday (6/7/2024). Photo by MKRI/Ifa.

JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) rejected the petition of NasDem (National Democratic Party) on the House of Representatives (DPR) members’ election results dispute (PHPU) for electoral district (dapil North Sumatera) II of North Sumatra Province. The hearing for case No. 193-01-05-02/PHPU.DPR-DPRD-XXII/2024 was held on Friday, June 7, 2024 in the plenary courtroom.

In its legal considerations, the Court asserted that after conducting a calculation, it found that the vtoe difference between the Petitioner and the Relevant Party II was 43,740 votes. However, the Petitioner did not explain this issue in their petition. Instead, the Petitioner divided the reasons for the petition into two: the reduction of the Petitioner’s votes by 17,044 votes in five regencies and the addition of 25,897 votes for the Relevant Party II in seven regencies in North Sumatra Province.

“This makes it increasingly difficult for the Court to find differences in numbers or clarity of the [alleged] vote transfers to Relevant Party II as a whole. Thus, the Petitioner’s argument regarding the reduction of the Petitioner’s votes and the inflation of votes for Related Party Il has no basis in law,” said Justice M. Guntur Hamzah reading the Court’s legal considerations.

Justice Guntur continued that a recommendation for revote at TPS (polling station) 003 of Golambanua I Village, Lahusa Subdistrict was issued by Bawaslu (Elections Supervisory Body) of South Nias Regency as a follow-up to report No. 005/LP/PL/Kab/02.19/11/2024. The Court asserted that this recommendation was irrelevant to the Petitioner’s petition because after examining exhibits P-2550 to P-2554, the vote inflation had benefited Democratic Party candidate Sabam Sinaga.

Furthermore, based on Bawaslu’s testimony at the hearing and the evidence submitted, it was true that Panwascam (subdistrict election supervisory committee) and Bawaslu did not make any recommendations directly related to the petition, even if other recommendations have been implemented by the Respondent, such as those issued by Panwascam of Kualuh Hilir and Aek Kuo Subdistricts. Thus, the Petitioner’s argument regarding the Petitioner’s objections and Bawaslu’s recommendations were unjustified under the law.

The Petitioner’s witnesses indeed raised objections and filled out D-incident forms both at the regency and subdistrict recapitulation. At the evidentiary hearing on May 30, the Petitioner presented a witness who had been a mandate witness of Garuda (Indonesian Guard of Change Party) and the objection was not directly related to the Petitioner’s votes reduction because the testimony was pertained to the reduction of Golkar’s (Party of Functional Groups) votes. The testimony related to this matter was presented by the Petitioner’s witness Fredikus Famalua, thus resulting in two regencies being the loci of both the Petitioner’s votes reduction and the addition of the Related Party II’s votes simultaneously.

“The fact made it difficult to ascertain where these 8,853 votes were cast. Moreover, after the Court examined the Petitioner’s evidence and compared it with the Respondent’s evidence through sampling, which was only to find that indeed there were errors in the Petitioner’s data presentation to the Court, the Court believes that just by sampling a few data points, it can already be concluded that the validity of the Petitioner’s data becomes questionable because identical numbers were found in the Petitioner’s evidence and the Respondent’s evidence,” Guntur stated.

News

Court Rejects NasDem’s Petition for North Sumatera II