Legal counsel Gugum Ridho Putra testifying at a regent election results dispute case 98/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 before Deputy Chief Justice Saldi Isra and Constitutional Justices Ridwan Mansyur and Arsul Sani, Thursday (1/9/2025). Photo by MKRI/Teguh.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) – Cheap bazaars by candidate pair number 2 Kamarudin Muten and Khairil Anwar (Kamarudin-Khairil) was one of the arguments in the petition filed by candidate pair number 1 Burhanudin and Ali Reza Mahendra (Buhanudin-Ali) at the preliminary hearing for case number 98/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 concerning the dispute over the 2024 East Belitung regent election results on Thursday, January 9, 2025.

The Petitioner argued that the cheap bazaar was a type of violation and/or systematic and massive money politics. It was carried out before voting day where the community was given money to buy cheap rice. It was done in five districts: Manggar, Dendang, Gantung, Simpang Renggiang, and Kelapa Kampit. The Petitioners argued that it had harm their vote acquisition.

“The Petitioners were only in second place with 23,301 valid votes. The violations and fraud directly contributed to the vote acquisition of candidate pair number 02, which outperformed the Petitioners. The valid votes for candidate pair number 02 were 44,949,” said legal counsel Gugum Ridho Putra.

The Petitioners believe the execution of the bazaar had affected the victory of candidate pair Kamarudin-Khairil. This is evidenced by data collected from the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) of East Belitung Regency, which showed that 54.8% of votes or 37,438 votes from five districts were unacceptable out of the total 68,250 valid votes.

The Petitioners requested the Court to order the Belitung Regency KPU (Elections Comission) to conduct a revote in the five districts. This request was made based on the belief that if there had been no violations, the Petitioners would have obtained a total of 37,438 votes.

“If in the five districts where systematic and massive fraud of money politics has been proven, surely the votes for candidate pair number 02 would have not outperformed the Petitioners’ votes,” said Gugum.

The Petitioners also request the Court to order the Belitung Regency KPU to conduct a revote, citing precedents where the Court ordered a revote due to violations in regent elections.

Author         : Ahmad Sulthon Zainawi
Editor          : Lulu Anjarsari P.
PR               : Fauzan Febriyan
Translators   : Dinita Aktivia/Yuniar Widiastuti (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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