Mathur Husyairi at the preliminary hearing for case No. 63/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 concerning Bangkalan Regency Election Result Dispute. Photo by MKRI/Ifa

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JAKARTA (MKRI) – The Constitutional Court (MK) held a preliminary hearing for Case No. 63/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 on Wednesday, January 8, 2025 presided over by the Chief Justice Suhartoyo (panel chair) and Constitutional Justices Foekh and M. Guntur Hamzah concerning the 2024 Bangkalan Regency Election Result Dispute. The petition was filed by Candidate Pair 02 Mathur Husyairi-Jayus Salam uncovering the vote buying violation in the form of dawn attack (candidates or their supporters distribute money or goods to voters shortly before an election).

The Respondent is the Bangkalan Regency KPU (General Election Commission) while the Relevant Party's Candidate Pair 01 Lukman Hakim-Fauzan Jakfar.

The legal counsel, Abdurrohman, accused parties of engaging in vote-buying through dawn attacks. He also highlighted issues such as a lack of neutrality among various parties, intimidation of witnesses, and an unusually high voter attendance in Bangkalan Regency.

The Petitioners argue that the violations mentioned were committed in a structured, systematic, and massive manner, and they affected his vote acquisition.

"The Petitioners’ argue that the difference in their vote acquisition was caused by structured, systematic, and massive violations," said Abdurrohman when reading out the arguments.

 Vote Buying on Silence Day

The Petitioners said there was a vote buying between November 24-27, 2024 in 18 districts in Bangkalan Regency. The distributed money started from Rp25,000 to Rp100,000.

Additionally, the vote buying was committed by the PPS and KPPS as the organizers, the chairpersons of neighborhood unit, community unit, village head, and hamlet head. They argue that those parties engage people to vote for other candidate pairs.

“It is done directly and through inserting a visual card with a picture of the Candidate Pair 01 within the envelope of that distributed money,” said Mathur.

Non-neutrality of the Organizer

Mathur also mentioned the non-neutrality from various parties, which are the organizers at the polling station level, organizers at the district election committee (PPK) level, to the regional election commission (KPUD) level. At the TPS and PPK levels, the non-neutrality occurred in 13 districts.

Meanwhile, at the Bangkalan Regency KPU level, which is the Respondent, the Petitioners alleged that the non-neutrality occurred during the Plenary Meeting for the Recapitulation of Vote Counting for Regent-Vice Regent of Bangkalan Regency Election. At that time, through the witnesses who were sent by the Petitioners, admitted that he had filed a protest to stop the recapitulation in several districts. This was because the calculation at the district level was only carried out by matching data from SiRekap.

 “Or not opening and manually match the C-Results KWK model data,” said Mathur.

Intimidating Witnesses

The Petitioners also conveyed that there was intimidation against the Petitioners's witnesses. They confiscate witnesses’ mobile phones at polling stations in various districts. "In order to not document the voting and voting counting process at the polling station," said Mathur.

In addition, the intimidation was carried out in the form of obstruction so that they would not attend the polling station with the lure of Rp300,000. "To not follow the voting and vote counting process at the polling station," he said.

Voters Attendance Rate

Finally, the Petitioners argued that there was a near-perfect voter attendance, reaching 90 to 100 percent in various polling stations. Overall, out of 764,886 voters, there were 545,688 valid and invalid votes. Thus, the average turnout in Bangkalan Regency reached 71.37 percent.

"The Petitioners argued that the high turnout that was in line with the used ballots was due to the large number of ballots that were marked by KPPS officers themselves," said Mathur.

Based on these arguments, the Petitioners requested the Court to annul the Decree of the Bangkalan Regency KPU No. 2376 concerning the Certification of the Results of the 2024 Bangkalan Regent-Vice Regent Election. They also requested the Court to order the Bangkalan Regency KPU to disqualify Candidate Pair 01 and certify the Petitioners as the winner.

In response to this petition, the Panel ordered the Respondent, Relevant Party, and Bawaslu to provide responses at the next hearing. "Later the Respondent, Related Parties, and Bawaslu will respond to this," said Constitutional Justice Suhartoyo.

Also read:
Case No 62/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025

Author: Ashri Fadilla
Editor: N. Rosi
Translator: Syifa Amelia/FS (RA)

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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