The Relevant Party’s legal counsel Edward Dewaruci testifying at the 2024 East Java gubernatorial election results dispute hearing for case No. 265/PHPU.GUB-XXIII/2025 before Deputy Chief Justice Saldi Isra and Constitutional Justices Ridwan Mansyur and Arsul Sani on panel 2, Friday (1/17/2025). Photo by MKRI/Teguh.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) – The East Java Elections Commission (KPU) as the Respondent denied having manipulated the vote recapitulation. The KPU stated that the vote acquisition of East Java governor-vice governor candidates 02 Khofifah Indar Parawansa-Emil Elestianto Dardak (Relevant Party) had remained stable at 58.54 percent throughout the recapitulation process. This was presented at the examination hearing for Case No. 265/PHPU.GUB-XXIII/2025 on the regional head election results dispute at the Constitutional Court (MK) on Friday, January 17, 2025.

“Logically, the stability of the numbers actually demonstrates that the vote acquisition was balanced. If the votes had been unbalanced, the percentage for one candidate would increase while others would decrease,” said the Respondent’s legal counsel Josua Victor, before Deputy Chief Justice Saldi Isra (panel chair) and Constitutional Justices Ridwan Mansyur and Arsul Sani on panel 2 in one of the courtrooms.

The Respondent also stated that the Petitioners had not clearly and thoroughly explained the reduction of their votes or the increase in the Relevant Party’s votes. In fact, there were no specific incident notes or witness objections that specifically addressed the Petitioners’ claims, nor were there any recommendations or decrees by the Elections Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) at the regency or provincial levels regarding the Petitioners’ arguments.

KPU Refutes Alleged 100% Voter Turnout

The East Java KPU also refuted the Petitioners’ claim regarding the 100 percent final voter list (DPT) at 86 polling stations (TPS), such as TPS 01 in Giri Village, Grogol District, Banyuwangi Regency. The Respondent explained that the issue stemmed from an error by the polling station working committee (KPPS) in inputting voter data in the governor C-result KWK model forms. Instead of using the number of voters from the A-regency/city voter list model forms, the KPPS mistakenly used the C-final voter list KWK forms, but they corrected right away.

Khofifah-Emil Dardak Refuted Vote Reduction

Khofifah-Emil Dardak (Relevant Party) rejected the claim made by Candidate Pair 03 Tri Rismaharini and Gus Hans regarding the 1,204,610 invalid votes. They argued that these invalid votes were linked to a decrease in their votes, which resulted in Candidate Pair 02 gaining more votes. However, Khofifah-Emil stated that the Petitioners had failed to prove any correlation or causal relationship between the invalid votes and the decrease in the Petitioners’ votes, as well as the significant difference in vote acquisition between the Petitioners and the Relevant Party.

“Therefore, there is no legal basis for the Petitioners to allege an anomaly in the acquisition of invalid votes and then charge the Relevant Party with reducing their valid votes,” said the Relevant Party’s legal counsel Edward Dewaruci.

Thus, the Respondent and the Relevant Party requested the Court to reject the Petitioners’ petition in its entirety and to affirm the validity of the East Java KPU Decree No. 63 of 2024 on the certification of the 2024 East Java governor election results. In the decree, Candidate Pair 01 Luluk Nur Hamidah-Lukmanul Khakim received 1,797,332 votes; Candidate Pair 02 Khofifah Indar Parawansa-Emil Elestianto Dardak secured 12,192,165 votes; and Candidate Pair 03 Risma-Gus Hans obtained 6,743,095 votes. The total valid votes reached 20,732,592 votes, and the total invalid votes were 1,204,610 votes.

In addition, East Java Bawaslu member Dewita Hayu Shinta said there were no objections relating to invalid votes from the Petitioners’ witnesses either verbally or in writing in D-incidents forms and/or witness objection KWK forms. Based on the results of the examination, the largest percentage was in Tuban Regency with 10.59 percent or 69,324 invalid votes, followed by Pasuruan Regency with 72,499 invalid votes or 7.99 percent, Jombang Regency with 55,742 invalid votes or 7.70 percent, and Bojonegoro Regency with 58,296 invalid votes or 7.23 percent. Meanwhile, there were no reports and/or findings of election violations relating to the argument of 90-100 percent of the DPT.

Also read: East Java Governor Election Results Dispute: Risma-Gus Hans Reveal Vote Manipulation and Impact of Social Assistance Distribution

In their petitums, the Petitioners requested the Court to annul the Decree of East Java KPU No. 63 of 2024 on the certification of the 2024 East Java governor election results, which was issued in Surabaya on December 9, 2024, at 21:30 WIB. The Petitioners also requested the Court to disqualify the candidate pair Khofifah-Emil, arguing that they had committed structured, systematic, and massive violations during the 2024 East Java governor election.

The Petitioners further requested the Court to determine the correct vote acquisition based on their version for the election in the East Java KPU Decree No. 63 of 2024, as follows: Luluk-Lukmanul with 1,797,332 votes and Risma-Gus Hans with 6,743,095 votes. The Petitioners also requested the Court to order the East Java KPU to carry out a revote in the East Java governor election at all polling stations in the province, with the participation of Candidate Pair 01 and Candidate Pair 03, excluding Candidate Pair 02.

Also read the petition for Case No. 265/PHPU.GUB-XXIII/2025.

Author              : Mimi Kartika
Editor                : N. Rosi
Translator         : Nazila Rikhusshuba/Yuniar Widiastuti (NL) (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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