Noken System in Waropen Regent Election Questioned
Image

The Petitioners’ legal counsel Ucok Edison M. testifying at the regent election results dispute hearing for Case Number 191/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 before Deputy Chief Justice Saldi Isra and Constitutional Justices Ridwan Mansyur and Arsul Sani on panel 2, Tuesday (1/14/2025). Photo by MKRI/Teguh.


JAKARTA (MKRI) Waropen Regent-Vice Regent Candidate Pair Number 1 Ruben Yason Rumboisano and Hendrik Lambert Maniagasi (Ruben-Hendrik) disputed the use of the noken* system in the 2024 Waropen regent election even though Waropen Regency is not included in areas that should be using it.

“The difference in the votes is caused by three things. The first is that the votes in Kirihi District should have been considered invalid because they were voted directly by the KPPS (polling station working committee) as if using the noken system, even though Waropen Regency does not use the noken system,” said Ucok Edison M. as the legal counsel for the Petitioners of Case Number 191/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025.

This was revealed by Ucok at the preliminary hearing before Deputy Chief Justice Saldi Isra (panel chair) and Constitutional Justices Ridwan Mansyur and Arsul Sani on panel 2 on Tuesday, January 14, 2025.

The Petitioners also argued that the recapitulation of the Kirihi District votes, which should have been carried out in the villages, was instead carried out at the Maju Hotel located in Nabire Regency. The Waropen Regency KPU reasoned that logistics could not be distributed to the villages.

“[Logistics] could not be distributed to the villages. It must be in the districts on the grounds of insufficient time considering that it was already November 26 and the election will be held on November 27, 2024. The person who said this was Mrs. Nely Tebay. And the PPD (district election committee) was confused about this because they hoped to get good instructions from the Waropen Regency KPU as coordinator,” explained Ucok.

The Petitioners also alleged the involvement of Police officers in favor of one candidate pair. This occurred during the recapitulation in Urei Faisei District and Waropen District.

“Precisely during recapitulation at 19 polling stations, the Petitioners’ witness wanted to ask that the attendance list and candidate pairs be compared because there were irregularities, where there was a significant increase [of votes] for Candidate Pair Number 3 Fransiscus Xaverius Mote and SiYowel Boari,” said Ucok.

Related to this argument, the Petitioners requested that a revote be carried out at 19 Kirihi District polling stations, 19 Urei Faisei District polling stations, and 1 Wonti District polling station.

(*) The noken voting system is carried out by communities in Papua, either through public agreement on vote allocation or through the delegation of votes to a tribal leader.

Author              : L.A.P
Editor                : Lulu Anjarsari P.
PR                    : Fauzan Febriyan
Translator         : Dinita Aktivia/Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

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.


Tuesday, January 14, 2025 | 19:04 WIB 32