Legal counsel Fadli Ramadhanil at the second hearing for the judicial review of the Election Law and the Regional Election Law, Thursday (10/17/2024). Photo by MKRI/Bayu.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) held the second material judicial review hearing for a petition filed by the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) on Thursday, October 17, 2024. The hearing for case No. 135/PUU-XXII/2024 concerned the revised petition against Article 1 paragraph (1), Article 167 paragraph (3), Article 347 paragraph (1) of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections and Article 3 paragraph (1) of Law No. 8 of 2015 on the Amendment to 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 (Pilkada Law).

The Petitioner’s legal counsel Fadli Ramadhanil delivered the revisions to the petition, which include an additional argument on the importance of the Constitutional Court’s ruling on electoral simultaneity. The Petitioner believes the House of Representatives (DPR) had a conflict of interest when discussing electoral simultaneity in the Election Law. It argues that the Constitutional Court’s constitutional limitation it imposes in its ruling could not provide enough legal certainty on electoral simultaneity to reinforce voters’ autonomy, reduce and streamline the burden on election organizers, and not to trouble voters.

“The discussions of the Election Law in 2017 did not focus on the five key variables of election in depth, which would have uncovered ways of empowering voters and the complexity of elections. So far, discussions on the Election Law have been compacted so the Constitutional Court need to provide a more detailed guidance beyond the provisions expressed in Decision No. 55/PUU-XVII/2019,” Fadli said before Chief Justice Suhartoyo and Constitutional Justices Asrul Sani and Ridwan Mansyur in the plenary courtroom.

Also read: Perludem: Five-Box Simultaneous Election Undermines Political Parties

At the preliminary hearing on Friday, October 4, Perludem through its legal counsels argued that the five-box simultaneous election undermines the political party system and its simplification as well as the people’s sovereignty in elections. It stated that the simultaneity of the legislative and presidential election cannot be viewed as merely a scheduling or technical issue and the implementation of legislation.

In addition, election schedules would seriously impact the implementation of all election principles under Article 22E paragraph (1) of the 1945 Constitution as well as the independence and professionalism of election implementation under Article 22E paragraph (5). These provisions stipulate that the presidential, DPR (House of Representatives), DPD (Regional Representatives Council), and provincial and regency/city DPRD (Regional Legislative Council) election be simultaneous. As a result, parties have become powerless in the face of political reality when candidates who possess wealth, are popular, and have a lot of material could transactionally and tactically be nominated because the parties no longer have the opportunity and energy to carry out regeneration in nominating legislative members at all levels simultaneously.

Author          : Sri Pujianti
Editor           : N. Rosi
PR               : Raisa Ayuditha Marsaulina
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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