The Dumai City Elections Commission, as the Respondent, while providing a response during the examination hearing for Case No. 89/PHPU.WAKO-XXIII/2025 regarding the 2024 regent election results dispute. The agenda was to hear testimony from the Respondent, the Relevant Party, and the Elections Supervisory Body (Bawaslu).

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JAKARTA (MKRI) – The Dumai City Elections Commission as the Respondent claimed to have distributed as many as 206,659 sheets (86.54 percent) of regency/city C-notice-KWK forms or invitations to vote to the voters listed in the final voters list (DPT) on November 21-24, 2024 through the polling station working committee (KPPS). In the examination hearing on Wednesday, January 22, 2025, the Respondent denied the Petitioners allegations of the Dumai KPU intentionally not delivering the invitations to the voters.

“The KPPS has distributed invitations with a [delivery] rate of 86.54 percent to the prospective voters,” said the Respondent’s legal authority Nurul Anifah at the examination hearing for the 2024 regent election results dispute case No. 89/PHPU.WAKO-XXIII/2025 to hear the Respondent, the Relevant Party, and Elections Supervisory Body (Bawaslu).

The Respondent claimed to have conducted various events to disseminate information on the 2024 regional election and the call to vote through social media, billboards, and banners. The Dumai KPU also claimed to have posted DPTs on the information board located outside and near the entrance of polling stations.

According to the Respondent, the Petitioners did not specify the locations of the polling stations in which the DPTs were deemed to not comply with the laws and regulations. Thus, the Respondent called such arguments to be untrue and vague.

Candidate Pair 2 Ferdiansyah and Soeparto (Petitioners) had previously requested the Court to annul the Dumai KPU Decree No. 449 of 2024 on the certification of election results of the 2024 regent election, in which Candidate Pair 3 Paisal and Sugiyarto (Relevant Party) were certified to acquire the most votes. According to the Petitioners, the Relevant Party has carried out mobilization and instruction to the RT (neighborhood unit) heads, Village Community Empowerment Institutions (LPMK), and integrated health service posts (Posyandu) members to support their campaign.

However, Paisal-Sugiyarto as the Relevant Party denied the allegation. They explained the workshop held for the RT heads and LPMK officers of Dumai City had already been scheduled long before Paisal registered himself as a mayor candidate. Moreover, Paisal denied coming to the activities attended by all the Dumai Posyandu officers on September 4-6, 2024.

“In principle, the Petitioners’ arguments in the key points of the petition were loaded with assumptions and not accompanied by valid evidence and did not measure exactly how and how much [the allegations] impact on the vote,” said the legal counsel of the Relevant Party Muhammad Arrasyid Ridho before the panel 2 presided over by Deputy Chief Justice Saldi Isra (panel chair) and Constitutional Justices Ridwan Mansyur and Arsul Sani.

Meanwhile, a member of the Dumai Bawaslu Yeni Kartini said the Petitioners’ witnesses had signed the vote count results at every polling station and the recapitulation results at the district level, except at certain locations not attended by the Petitioners’ witnesses. There were no objection forms filed during the recapitulation process.

Yeni also added that the Dumai Bawaslu had received reports of alleged election violations related to the mobilization of 576 RT heads and LPMK officers in a workshop in Bukittinggi and the involvement of the head of the Health Office in mobilizing the Dumai Posyandu officers to vote for a certain candidate pair. The Dumai Bawaslu had issued a recommendation in response to the alleged violations of laws and regulations and forwarded the recommendation to the National Civil Service Agency (BKN).

In short, BKN confirmed receipt of the recommendation and stated they will establish a team that handles reports of alleged ASN partiality and analyze the studies or findings from the community or supervisory agencies. “The result of the follow-up will be delivered through the Integrated Sharing System application,” said Yeni before the panel.

In the preliminary hearing, the Petitioners in their petitums requested the Court to: 1) annul the Dumai City KPU Decree No. 449 of 2024 on the certification of the 2024 Dumai mayor-vice mayor election results; 2) declare invalid and cancel the announcement of Paisal and Sugiyarto as Dumai mayor-vice mayor candidates; 3) order the Dumai City KPU to do a revote no later than two months after the Court’s decision; and 4) order the KPU to disqualify and revoke the rights of Candidate Pair 3 in the revote.

Author : Mimi Kartika

Editor : Tiara Agustina

Translator : M. Hafidh Al Mukmin/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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