Legal Counsel of the Related Party Girindra Sandino giving testimony in the continued hearing of Case Number 17/PHPU.WAKO-XXIII/2025 regarding the Regent Election Results Dispute (PHPU Wako) at the Constitutional Court. Monday (1/20/2025). Public Relations / Firm

---

JAKARTA (MKRI) – The Langsa City KIP (Election Independent Commission), serving as the Respondent, stated that the object of Case No. 17/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 concerning the Langsa City mayoral election results dispute does not pertain to the Langsa City KIP decree on the certification of the mayoral election results. They also argued that the Petitioner, candidate 05 Fazlun Hasan, lacks legal standing.

“According to the Respondent, the Petitioner lacks legal standing as the petition is incomplete, being submitted solely by one member of the candidate pair for Langsa Mayor and Vice Mayor without including their running mate," stated the Respondent's legal counsel Nofrizal in the examination hearing for the Langsa City mayoral election results dispute at the Court on Monday, January 20, 2025.

The Langsa City KIP stated that the Petitioner had exceeded the deadline for filing the petition with the Court and had incorrectly identified the parties involved. They should have been the Respondent, but the Petitioner instead filed the petition against Candidate Pair 02, who should have been identified as the Relevant Party. Candidate Pair 02, as the Relevant Party, also argued during the hearing that the petition was unclear and requested the Court to reject it in its entirety.

“[We request the Court to] declare the validity of Langsa City KIP Decree No. 555 of 2024 concerning the certification of the 2024 Mayoral Election results, dated December 2, 2024,” said the Relevant Party’s legal counsel Girindra Sandino.

Meanwhile, a member of Langsa City's Election Supervisory Committee (Panwaslih), Fauzi Fazhari stated that Panwaslih received 20 reports during the 2024 Langsa City mayoral election. These included reports of alleged vote-buying, which were forwarded to police investigators. However, the cases were later dismissed due to insufficient evidence.

Besides, violations concerning the state civil servants' (ASN) partiality were reported. One verified report involved the creation of a WhatsApp chat group by an ASN, with one of the group's administrators being a mayoral candidate. This was deemed a violation and was subsequently forwarded to the Acting Mayor. However, Panwaslih receives no response.

In the petition, Fazlun Hasan claimed there had been structured, systematic, and massive (TSM) vote-buying practices by Candidate Pair 2 Jeffry Sentana S. Putra and M. Haikal Alfisyahrin and their campaign team in five districts of Langsa. Fazlun explained that during the campaign, the campaign coordinators of Candidate Pair 2 as the Relevant Party had allegedly committed violations of money politics in all districts in Langsa City and collected voters’ data by taking pictures of the voters’ ID cards next to business cards containing pictures of Candidate Pair 2. Afterwards, the data was distributed to the administrators at the district level and voters were promised to be given money by the election day. Voters who had their ID cards photographed were given coupons to redeem their rewards.

Fazlun admitted to finding indications of fraud in the form of envelopes containing money and business cards of Candidate Pair 2 during election silence. He claimed to have reported the incidents to the Langsa City voters supervisory committee. He alleged that the vote-buying practice had affected the number of votes acquired because there was an increase in the number of votes for Candidate Pair 2 at almost all polling stations across the districts of Langsa City.

Author: Mimi Kartika
Editor: Tiara Agustina
PR: Fauzan Febriyan
Translator: Syifa Amelia/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

---