The Petitioner’s legal counsels, Regginaldo Sultan (left) and Ramli Antula (right), while attending the preliminary hearing of the Case No. 93/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 on the North Halmahera Regent Election Result Dispute, Friday (1/10/2024) in panel 3 courtroom. Photo by MKRI/Bayu

---

JAKARTA (MKRI) — The North Halmahera regent-vice regent candidate pair Muchlis Tapi Tapi-Tonny Laos filed an election result dispute to the Court. On Friday, January 10, 2025, the Court held a preliminary hearing for this case, chaired by Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat in panel 3 courtroom. The petitioner objected to the certification of vote result by the General Election Commission (KPU) under the case No. 93/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025. The Petitioner suspected that the candidate pair 4 Piet Hein Babua-Kasman Ahmad in achieving election victory, committed Structured, Systematic and Massive (TSM) violations, including the abuse of voting rights, discrepancies in voter lists, and inaccuracies in vote recapitulation.

The petitioner’s legal counsel, Regginaldo Sultan argues the ineligibility of this candidate pair which started prior to candidate registration. He stated that certain community groups had challenged their candidacy, including by the Petitioners’ legal team, as the candidate pair in question did not meet the provision of Article 7 paragraph (2) letter i of Law No. 10 of 2016 and KPU Regulation.

“In early August 2024, a 38-second video depicting Regent candidate Piet Hein Babua engaging in sexual misconduct caused outrage within the North Halmahera community," Regginaldo added.

In addition, the Petitioner argues several violations including the use of voting rights by other parties, deliberate attempts to make invalid ballots, voters with different domicile but still allowed to vote, and errors in vote counting at the polling station level. In addition, the Petitioner found that the Respondent omitted the C-KWK-form, permitted underage voters, and marked the C-KWK-DPT attendance form for the permanent voters list (DPT) with only checkmarks, lacking signature.

The Petitioner also revealed double voters and differences of DPT with that of the C-KWK-DPT form. As such, in the petitum, the Petitioner requests the Court to annul the certification of vote counting result and to order a revote in North Halmahera regency.
Author           : Utami Argawati
Editor            : Lulu Anjarsari P.
PR                : Tiara Agustina
Translator     : Ryan Alfian / 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.

---