The preliminary hearing for the material judicial review petition of the Regional Election Law filed by three petitioners, Wednesday (9/25/2024). Photo by MKRI/Ilham W.M.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — Two resident of Banten Province and one Jakartan have filed for the judicial review of Article 79 paragraph (1) of Law No. 1 of 2015 on the Stipulation of the Government Regulation in Lieu of Law No. 1 of 2014 on the Election of Governors, Regents, and Mayors into Law; Article 94 of Law No. 8 of 2015 on the Amendment to Law No. 1 of 2015, as well as Article 107 paragraph (1) and Article 109 paragraph (1) Law No. 10 of 2016 on the Second Amendment to Law No. 1 of 2015.

In the petition challenging the constitutionality of those Regional Election (Pilkada) Laws, Heriyanto, Ramdansyah, and Raziv Barokah (Petitioners I-III) asserted that they believe the current regional head candidates do not reflect the people’s aspirations but the political party elite instead.

“We believe the current candidate pairs are products of pork barrel politics, Your Honors,” Heriyanto said at the preliminary hearing for the case No. 125/PUU-XXII/2024 in the plenary courtroom on Wednesday, September 25, 2024.

The Petitioners explained that those in power hold the weaknesses of almost all chairmen or secretaries-general of political parties. Most political party elite and the ruling administration are in coalition to monopolize the regional head election in various regions in the country.

The Petitioners believe regional head candidates in a number of regions are endorsed not in the public interest, but only in the elite’s interest. In fact, because a large coalition has been formed, it may result in only one regional head candidate pair, which will have to win against an empty column.

However, the Petitioners wish that the empty column to apply to regions that have two or more regional head candidate pairs to reflect voters’ refusal to choose the existing tickets.

In essence, the Petitioners want to that the empty column remains an option on the ballot for regions that have two or more candidate pairs, which count toward valid votes and may affect election results. In their petitum, they asked the Court to declare Article 79 paragraph (1) of Law No. 1 of 2015, Article 94 of Law No. 8 of 2015, as well as Article 107 paragraph (1) and Article 109 paragraph (1) Law No. 10 of 2016 unconstitutional and not legally binding if not interpreted as they requested.

Justices’ Advice

The hearing was presided over by Chief Justice Suhartoyo (panel chair) and Constitutional Justices Arief Hidayat and Anwar Usman. They all questioned the Petitioners’ argument on the empty column. If applied, it would result in the difficulty of any candidate pair winning the election.

“If it was only a blank vote to represent abstention, there is no [candidate elected] here. Howe can [the issue] be solved? The Petitioners may elaborate this in the posita, including whether there are any impacts, in the petitum. If there are impacts, the petitum must be revised,” the chief justice said.

Before adjourning the session, Chief Justice Suhartoyo announced that the Petitioners would have 14 days to revise the petition and submit it by October 8 at 15:00 WIB.

Author            : Mimi Kartika
Editor             : Lulu Anjarsari P.
PR                 : Fauzan Febriyan
Translator       : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

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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