The Petitioner’s legal counsel Putu Baravo Timothy attending a ruling hearing for the 2024 legislative election results dispute of South Kalimantan Province, Monday (6/10/2024). Photo by MKRI/Teguh.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) rejected the 2024 South Kalimantan Province DPRD (Regional Legislative Council) election results dispute petition for case No. 191-01-03-22/PHPU.DPR-DPRD-XXII/2024 on Monday, June 10, 2024. The case was petitioned by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).    .

Reading out the Court’s legal considerations, Constitutional Justice M. Guntur Hamzah stated that at the hearing on May 29, the KPU witnesses from Kotabaru and Tanah Bumbu Regencies reported no objections from the Petitioner during the recapitulation at the regency level.

“The lack of objections from the political party witnesses during the recapitulation in Kotabaru and Tanah Bumbu was confirmed by witnesses from the Relevant Parties, Golkar (Party of Functional Groups) witness in Pulau Laut Sigam and Kotabaru Regency Wahyudi and NasDem (National Democratic Party) witness in Tanah Bumbu Regency Azhar,” said Justice Guntur.

Meanwhile, at the Banjarmasin City recapitulation, he explained, the Petitioner’s witness raised objection to the increased votes for the Relevant Party and rejected the recapitulation results. Despite this, the Petitioner’s witness signed the recapitulation report at the provincial level, indicating no further issues at that stage, according to the Respondent’s witness Subhani.

Additionally, Bawaslu’s (Elections Supervisory Body) decision of independent vote recount based on its own monitoring data of the Relevant Party’s votes after the national results were announced was deemed inappropriate and beyond its authority, thus must be disregarded.

“Based on the aforementioned provisions, if objections to vote discrepancies were valid, the subdistrict election committee (PPK) and KPU at the regency/city level must immediately correct it, and unresolved issues must be recorded as special incidents for follow-up in the provincial recapitulation,” explained Justice Guntur.

The Court noted that the Petitioner had disputed vote discrepancies between the C-result copies and the D-result forms at the subdistrict, regency/city, provincial, and national levels. However, such objections should have been addressed during the tiered recapitulation process.

Furthermore, Bawaslu’s decision for the a quo case on an addition of 15,654 votes for the Relevant Party at 206 polling stations in Tanah Bumbu Regency, 386 polling stations in Banjarmasin City, and 45 polling stations in Kotabaru Regency, did not align with the Petitioner’s claim of 15,690 additional votes at those polling stations.

Also read:

PDI-P Fights for Fifth Seat in South Kalimantan I

Bawaslu: KPU Violated Recapitulation Procedure in South Kalimantan Province

Court Highlights Recapitulation Issue in South Kalimantan

Tanah Laut Regency

To support its claims, the Petitioner included four polling stations in Tanah Laut Regency. However, it was found that there were no further allegations or evidence presented at the May 29 hearing. Both the Petitioner’s and the Relevant Party’s witnesses signed the recapitulation minute based on the regency/city DPR D-result form in Tanah Laut Regency without objection. Thus, the Court concluded that the Petitioner’s petition on the DPR vote count in South Kalimantan II was legally unfounded.

“[The Court] adjudicated, relating to exceptions: to reject the exceptions by the Respondent regarding the Court’s authority and the petition’s obscurity; to reject the exception by the Relevant Party regarding the Court’s authority, the petition filing deadline, the Petitioner’s legal standing, and the petition’s obscurity; relating to the subject matter: to reject the Petitioner’s petition in its entirety,” said Chief Justice Suhartoyo delivering the verdict.

Author              : Utami Argawati
Editor                : Lulu Anjarsari P.
PR                    : Fauzan Febriyan
Translators        : Dzaki Difa Al Hadiid/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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