The Petitioners’ legal counsels Moh. Maulana and Muzakkir Ahmad at the preliminary hearing for case No.163/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 on the Kutai Kartanegara regent election result dispute, Monday (1/13/2025). Photo by MKRI/Ifa.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Kutai Kartanegara regent-vice regent candidate pair 2 Awang Yacoub Luthman-Akhmad Zais filed a petition to the Court, requesting the annulment of the Kutai Kartanegara Regency KPU (Elections Commission) Decree No. 1893 of 2024 on the certification of the 2024 Kutai Kartanegara regent election results. Chief Justice Suhartoyo with Constitutional Justices Daniel Yusmic P. Foekh and M. Guntur Hamzah presided over the preliminary hearing for this case on Monday, January 13, 2025.

At the hearing for Case No. 163/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025, the Petitioners’ legal counsel Moh. Maulana explained the KPU’s (Respondent) certified vote results: candidate pair 1 Edi Damansyah-Rendi Solihin with 259,489 votes, candidate pair 2 (the Petitioners) with 34,763 votes, and candidate pair 3 Dendi Suryadi-Alif Turiadi with 83,513 votes. The Petitioners claimed that regent candidate 1 Edi Damansyah had served two terms as regent of Kutai Kartanegara: firstly as acting regent from October 6, 2017 to February 13, 2019 and subsequently as definitive regent from February 14, 2019 to February 13, 2021.

As such, the Petitioners requested the Court to: 1) postpone the applicability of the threshold provisions in Article 158 of Law 10 of 2016 in this specific case; 2) declare the entire election and its results invalid given the ineligibility of candidate pair 1’s candidacy; and 3) order a revote by only involving candidate pair 2 and 3 to ensure the continuation of the Kutai Kartanegara Regency Government.

“Based on the reasons above, the Petitioners wish the Court will order the Kutai Kartanegara Regency KPU to conduct a revote of the regent-vice regent election no later than two months after the Court’s decision, involving only candidate pair 2 Awang Yacoub Luthman-Akhmad Zais and candidate pair 3 Dendi Suryadi-Alif Turiadi,” said Maulana reading the petitum.

The petition for case No. 163/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 can be accessed here.

N. Rosi

Author               : Utami Argawati
Editor                : N. Rosi
Translator         : Ryan Alfian/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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