The Petitioners’ legal counsels, Bliher Simanjuntak and Marhendra Handoko, while attending the preliminary hearing of case No. 295/PHPU.GUB-XXIII/2025 on the Central Papua gubernatorial election result dispute. Photo by MKRI/Ifa
JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Petitioners argue the implementation of the noken* system in the 2024 Central Papua Province. The Central Papua governor-vice governor candidate pair 4 (Willem Wandik and Aloisius Giyai) serves as the Petitioners, while the Central Papua General Election Commission (KPU) acts as the Respondent and candidate pair 3 (Meki Nawipa and Deinas Geley) as the Relevant Party.
Chief Justice Suhartoyo chaired the preliminary hearing of this case with Constitutional Justices Daniel Yusmic P. Foekh and M. Guntur Hamzah on Thursday, January 16, 2025, in panel 1 courtroom.
The Petitioners argued that there were violations in the implementation of the noken system in Deiyai regency, Central Papua where vote differences occurred. The Petitioners claimed that their votes were deflated from 77,400 to 48,375 using the noken agreement in Deiyai.
“On election day, the district election committee (PPD) took over, causing differences in the noken implementation,” said the Petitioners’ legal counsel, Bliher Simanjuntak while reading the petition.
The Petitioner also argued that violations occurred in Paniai Regency, Central Papua, including the plenary certification at the regency level, causing disagreement over the certification four times. The Petitioner stated that the Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) issued a recommendation, noting violations due to no election and no provision of the D-result form to the witnesses."
In the hearing, the Panel inquired about the recommendation issuance to Central Papua Bawaslu, who clarified that it was issued by Paniai Regency Bawaslu and not based on a collective decision.
Bribery Allegation
In addition, in Paniai Regency, the Respondent alleged bribery in the Central Papua election. “In the Paniai district election, we also found a bribery of Rp200 million, and this is currently under investigation by the police,” added Bliher.
In the plenary certification at the district level, the Petitioner argued that in Puncak Jaya regency, the Respondent deliberately extended the time for transferring the votes to candidate pair 4. The Petitioner also suspected cash envelope distribution during this vote transfer.
“[We] consider that during the campaign in Puncak Jaya, only candidate pair 4 did not provide cash envelopes to the district election committee, so the votes for candidate pair 4 were transferred to candidate pair 3 by bribery,” explained the Petitioner’s legal counsel, Marhendra Handoko.
As such, in the petitums, the Petitioners request the Court to annul the Central Papua decree No. 461 on the certification of governor-vice governor. The Petitioners also wish the Court to disqualify the Relevant Party and conduct a revote in three regencies: Deiyai, Paniai, and Puncak Jaya.
Also read the following Central Papua Election Result Disputes:
*) 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 : Ashri Fadilla
Editor : N. Rosi
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.
Thursday, January 16, 2025 | 15:50 WIB 263