The Respondent's legal counsel Ali Nurdin (center) at the examination hearing for the 2024 North Maluku gubernatorial election case No. 251/PHPU.BGP-XXIII/2025 to hear the Respondent, the Relevant Party, and Bawaslu, Wednesday (1/22/2025). Photo by MKRI/Bayu.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) – As the Respondent, the North Maluku Elections Commission (KPU) refuted the petition evidence attached by Candidate Pair 1 Husain Alting Sjah and Asrul Rasyid Ichsan (Petitioners) in the regent election dispute case and thus could not follow it up any further. The Petitioners raised the issue after the election was certified rather than during the voting, thus the Respondent deemed the Petitioners to be mistaken in their arguments and erred in counting the difference in vote acquisition. This was conveyed by the Respondent through their legal counsel Ali Nurdin in the hearing for Case 251/PHPU.GUB-XXIII/2025 on Wednesday, January 22, 2025.

Furthermore, Ali explained that the Petitioners had accused the presence of voters who used ID cards from 12 provinces outside the Province of North Maluku. However, this argument is considered unfounded because the Petitioners could not describe the address of the domicile of the voters alleged.

“The Petitioners are deemed to have ignored the provisions of Article 30 of Government Regulation No. 40 of 2019 on the Implementation of Law No. 23 of 2006 on Population Administration, which has been amended by Law No. 24 of 2013. The regulation stipulates the National Identity Number (NIN) as a single identity number is used for all public service affairs and is valid for life and does not change despite changes in domicile,” he explained before the panel presided over by Constitutional Justices Arief Hidayat (panel chair), Anwar Usman, and Enny Nurbaningsih.

Based on the provision, although the NIN of the voters were issued from outside of North Maluku Province, as long as the address of domicile listed on KTP is still in the North Maluku region, then the voters concerned still have the right to use their voting rights in the polling station corresponding to their domicile address. Therefore, the Petitioners’ arguments related to the use of ID cards from outside the province should be dismissed because they are not in accordance with the applicable legal provisions.

Meanwhile, Denny Indrayana as the legal counsel of Candidate Pair 4 Sherly Tjoanda and Sarbin Sehe (Relevant Party) argued that the Petitioners had not justified the reason the Court needed to preside over the case violation. “What’s more, there were no reports of TSM administration violation to the Bawaslu. Not one. So, if it suddenly appears here, it is an issue in our opinion,” Denny affirmed.

The Chairperson of the North Maluku Bawaslu Masita Nawawi Gani revealed to have received an election dispute complaint with a report registration number on October 28, 2024. In response, on November 1, 2024 the North Maluku Bawaslu issued a notice that the report could not be registered since it was found to lack material requirements as listed in the PSP-5-Registration Notice form.

Author : Utami Argawati

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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