The Constitutional Court held the examination hearing on the 2024 East Aceh Regent Election results in Case No. 44/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025, filed by Candidate Pair Number 1, Sulaiman-Abdul Hamid, on Monday, January 20, 2025. Photo by MKRI/Teguh.

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JAKARTA, MKRI - The Independent Election Commission (KIP) of East Aceh Regency as the Respondent Party in the Dispute over the 2024 East Aceh Regent Election Results asserted that the arguments filed by the Petitioner were baseless. This rebuttal was delivered by Niko Kreshna AP the Relevant Party’s legal counsel on Monday, January 20, 2025, in the Constitutional Courtroom.

In the hearing of Case No. 44/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 filed by Candidate Pair Number 1 Sulaiman-Abdul Hamid, the Respondent denied the allegation of the village officials and village apparatus involvement in the election process. The Respondent argues that following the provisions of Article 135A of the Election Law, the authority that has the right to handle alleged administrative violations related to the involvement of village officials is the Election Supervisory Committee (Panwaslih) or the Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu).

“The Respondent has never received any recommendation from Panwaslih regarding the alleged violation,” stated Niko in a hearing presided over by Constitutional Justices Arief Hidayat (panel chair), Anwar Usman, and Enny Nurbaningsih.

No Objection

Regarding the allegation of forged signatures in the vote recapitulation document (C Results), the Respondent states that so far there is no official report has been found regarding the allegation. In fact, all recapitulation documents at the polling station level had been signed by the witnesses from the Petitioner.

“All the C Result documents have been signed by the Petitioners's witnesses. Indeed, at the sub-district level, there were some [witnesses] who did not sign, but at the polling station level there were no issues, so the implementation of voting and vote counting was orderly and in accordance with procedures,” assert Sayed Reza Fahlevi, the Respondent's principal.

He also explained that at the sub-district level, after the recapitulation process was complete, the Petitioners’ witness did not provide a rebuttal to the announced results. However, at the sub-district level, five sub-districts were not signed by the witnesses. The five sub-districts were Pante Bidari, Madat, Simpang Ulim, Rantau Peureulak, and Sungai Raya.

Furthermore, at the regency level, the Petitioners’ witness, who was previously said not to have signed the recapitulation document, stated that the plenary process could continue without any problems. This shows that there were no problems that were considered crucial by the Petitioners’ witness.

“During the recapitulation process at the regency level when the Petitioners’ witnesses were asked by the KIP, they stated that they did not sign. When asked if there were any objections, they did not respond,” added Sayed.

Niko added that based on the Decree of the KIP of East Aceh Regency No. 82 of 2024 dated December 3, 2024, concerning the Recapitulation of the Results of the Counting of Votes for the 2024 East Aceh Regent Election, the total valid votes recorded were 191,681 votes, while according to the Petitioners’ version, the total valid votes were 191,406 votes. Thus, there is a difference of 275 votes.

Relevant Parties Alleged Violations by the Petitioners

On the same occasion, the Relevant Party, Iskandar Usman Al Farlaky and T. Zainal Abidin, represented by Muslim A. Gani (legal counsel) confirmed that he rejected all the arguments filed by the Petitioner. “We can present a video evidence that we filed to the Constitutional Court in PT-7, [the violation is] in the form of money politics committed by the Petitioners in Birem Bayeun sub-district and it was caught red-handed by the community,” said Muslim. This violation has been reported to Bawaslu but has not yet received an answer.

East Aceh Panwaslih member Faisal stated that there are six reports that had been processed by Bawaslu. “Some reports have been recommended to the authorities, in this case, the [authorities is the] Acting Regent. Meanwhile, some reports do not fulfill the material elements so they [the reports] cannot be continued, but we still convey the status of the report to the respondent party,” explained Faisal.

Meanwhile, the Head of East Aceh Panwaslih, Musliadi, responded to the issue of double voting by stating that the results of the District Panwaslih study showed that the reported party was not the actual perpetrator, but someone else. In addition, the evidence submitted was considered not strong enough, even the only witness submitted did not witness the incident directly.

Musliadi also added that a study had been conducted in Madat Sub-district. However, the report did not describe the study in detail. “When the witness wanted to be clarified, he refused and went straight home. So that we cannot conclude what we want to decide.[so] We stopped the report,” stated Musliadi.

Previously, in the preliminary hearing, the Petitioners in Case No. 44/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 felt aggrieved due to alleged violations committed in a structured, systematic, and massive manner. The Petitioners highlight the involvement of local officials, specifically village heads and village officials, in favoring Candidate Pair Number 3 Iskandar Usman Al Farlaky-Zainal Abidin (the Relevant Party). These violations significantly affected the outcome of the election and harmed the Petitioners’ vote tally.

Kamaruddin, The Petitioners’ legal counsel, said that he had attached several evidence and arguments related to various forms of violations that occurred during the election process. One of the highlights was the alleged involvement of the village head and village officials in Madat Sub-District, East Aceh Regency. These officials were allegedly actively directing residents to vote for the Relevant Party.

The Petitioners firmly reject the results of the vote recapitulation certified by the East Aceh KIP based on Decree No. 82 of 2024 concerning the Recapitulation of the Results of the Counting of Votes for the 2024 East Aceh Regent Election, which was announced on December 3, 2024. The petitioners argued that the results did not reflect the actual votes due to various fraudulent practices that favored certain candidate pairs.

Due to the alleged violations, the Petitioners requested the Court to cancel the vote recapitulation results and order a re-vote in East Aceh District.

Author  : Utami Argawati
Editor   : Fitri Yuliana
PR   : Tiara Agustina
Translators: Dinita Aktivia/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.

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