The Principal Petitioner, Hendrik N Christiaan, while attending the preliminary hearing of case No. 135/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 on the West Maluku regent election dispute. Photo by MKRI/Ifa

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Petitioner argued that the Southwest Maluku Regency General Election Commission (KPU) failed to conduct administrative and factual verification to the regent candidate Benyamin Thomas Noach who already served two-terms as regent. Candidate pair 1, Hendrik Natalius Christian-Hengky Ricardo A. Pelata presented this argument in the preliminary hearing of regent election dispute case No.135/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025. Chief Justice Suhartoyo and Constitutional Justices Daniel Yusmic P. Foekh and M. Guntur Hamzah held the hearing on Tuesday, January 14, 2025.

The Petitioner’s legal counsel, Anthoni Hatane filed a petition requesting the annulment of Southwest Maluku Regency KPU Decree No. 696 of 2024 on the certification of 2024 Southwest Maluku regent-vice regent election result. The vote results were: candidate pair 1 (Hendrik Natalius Christian-Hengky Ricardo A. Pelata)/the Petitioner with 16,942 votes, candidate pair 2 (Benyamin Thomas Noach-Agustinus Lekwardai Kilikily) with 26,940 votes, and candidate pair 3 (Simon Moshe Maahury-John Johiands Uniplaita) with 3,811 votes, for a total of 47,693 of valid votes.

The Petitioner claimed that the Respondent’s decision to announce the candidate pair 2 violates the Pilkada Law. As such, the candidate pair must be disqualified in the Southwest Maluku regent election 2024.

“Based on the evidence, the regent candidate, Benyamin Thomas Noach, already served two terms as regent. According to the decree, the said person served from May 24, 2019-April 9, 2021 (2 years and 4 months). Also, there were official changes in the Southwest Maluku government which violates Article 7 paragraph (2) letter n of Law No. 10 of 2016,” explained Anthoni.

The Petitioner argued that the incumbent regent (in 2019) used his authority to favor his candidacy as regent candidate in the election. He changed most officials in the Southwest Maluku government six months before his announcement as a regent candidate and certification of elected candidate. The Petitioner also suspected that the candidate collaborated with the state apparatus to endorse them, violating election principles of honesty and fairness and undermining democracy.

For these arguments, the Petitioner requests the Court to declare the disqualification of candidate pair number 2 from the 2024 Southwest Maluku regent-vice regent election and order the Respondent for conducting a revote in all polling stations of Southwest Maluku, involving only the Petitioner and candidate pair 3.

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

Author           : Sri Pujianti
Editor            : N. Rosi
Translator     : Ryan Alfian/FS

 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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