The Respondent's legal counsel Agus Dwi Warsono (left) at the examination hearing for the 2024 Intan Jaya regent election case No. 292/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 to hear the Respondent, the Relevant Party, and Bawaslu, Thursday (1/30/2025). Photo by MKRI/Bayu

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JAKARTA (MKRI) – As the Respondent, the Intan Jaya Regency Elections Commission denied secretly certifying the regent election results as alleged by Candidate Pair 2 Marten Tipagau-Malianus Belau (Petitioners). The Petitioners were deemed to obscure the facts by omitting the plenary meeting for the recapitulation of vote results  at the district level from December 3 to December 6, 2024 in their petition.

The Respondent was represented by legal counsel Agus Dwiwarsono in the examination hearing to hear the Respondent’s response and the statements by the Relevant Party and the Elections Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) and to validate evidence of the Parties. The hearing for Case No. 292/PHPU.GUB-XXIII/2025 was presided over by Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat (panel chair) and Constitutional Justices Anwar Usman and Enny Nurbaningsih on panel 3 on Thursday, January 30, 2025.

Agus attached the attendance list as evidence showing the witnesseses of all candidate pairs, including the Petitioners’, attending the vote count recapitulation plenary meeting at the district level from December 3 to December 6, 2024. At the time, there was indeed a conflict among the supporters leading to a security issue.

“Hence, the Respondent could not carry on the plenary meeting for the recapitulation of vote count results of Intan Jaya Regency for Homeyo District and five other districts, which had not submitted the recapitulation of vote count results, and the Respondent needed to relocate the plenary meeting for the recapitulation to Nabire,” Agus explained.

Agus opined that the Petitioners seemed to paint an impression that the Intan Jaya KPU manipulated and conducted the vote recapitulation stealthily and in secret and to benefit Candidate Pair 1 Aner Maisini-Igapa. Agus insisted that it was a false and nonfactual argument.

Due to security concerns, the Intan Jaya KPU moved the plenary meeting for the recapitulation of the election results of Intan Jaya Regency to Nabire from December 12 to December 14, 2024. The session relocated to Nabire was also attended by the Nabire Regency Bawaslu, the district election committee, the election supervisory committee, and the witnesses of the candidate pairs.

"The Respondent had requested the Intan Jaya Regency Police to safeguard the evacuation, relocation, and evacuation of the recapitulation of the vote count results to Nabire Regency for the reasons stipulated in Minute No. 137 and so forth on the venue relocation," Agus explained.

The Intan Jaya KPU then certified the recapitulation of vote count results into a minute and certification of recapitulation results based on the regent/mayor D-result KWK form. There were no incident and/or objection forms filed by the witnesses present and the recapitulation results were decreed by the KPU Chairman and recorded in Minute No. 1041/PL.02.6.BA/9407/2024 on the recapitulation of vote count results at the regency level for the 2024 election dated December 14, 2024.

Five KPU commissioners also signed the minute, but two of them did not sign the regent/mayor D-result form. Several witnesses of the candidate pairs also refused to sign the form. Yet, the witnesses and the two KPU commissioners did not file an objection stating their refusal to sign the regent/mayor D-result form.

“While [the form] was only signed by three members of the Intan Jaya KPU and missing signatures from the witnesses, it does not invalidate the certification of election results of the Intan Jaya regent election,” argued Agus.

“Whereas two members of the Intan Jaya KPU and the candidate pairs’ witnesses did not list an excuse as to why they did not sign the regent/mayor D-result form and there were no objection and/or incident forms submitted by the witnesses, thus the Respondent concluded and recorded Minute No. 1041 dated December 14, 2024,” Agus concluded.

TSM Violations Refuted

As the Relevant Party, Candidate Pair 1 Aner Maisini-Igapa too delivered their statement in the hearing. The Relevant Party’s legal counsel Iza Sadzili stated that neither Aner Maisini nor Igapa had a position in the regency government, thus unable to commit structured, systematic, and massive (TSM) violations.

“This was in contrast to the Petitioners, Your Honors, since one of the Petitioners was a former deputy chairman of the DPRD, thus the Petitioner himself had potentials to commit TSM [violations],” Iza argued.

They also confirmed the Respondent’s response and stated the recapitulation had been conducted in Nabire from December 12 to December 14. 2024 for security reasons. 

The Relevant party stated that the Respondent in fact had conducted a second vote recapitulation for the Agisiga, Tomosiga, Hitadipa, Wandai, and Ugiba Districts as the Petitioners requested.

"Whereas the district committee (Pandis) and the witnesses of the candidate pairs, including witnesses from the Petitioners did not raise any objection to the results of repeat vote recapitulation and matching of the field results data. Thus, the district election committee (PPD) from each district recorded the number of votes as agreed and read in front of the Respondent, the witnesses of the candidate pairs, and the Intan Jaya Bawaslu,” said Iza.

KPU Followed Bawaslu Recommendations

Meanwhile, a Bawaslu member Otniel Tipagau stated that the institution had issued Recommendation No. 277 on December 13, 2024 on recount and data matching in Agisiga, Tomosiga, Hitadipa, Wandai, and Ugiba Districts. The recommendation was then followed up and implemented by the Intan Jaya KPU.

“However, in Ugiba District, there was no data matching conducted, because the chairperson and the officers of the district election committee (PPD) were not present,” said Otniel.

Furthermore, the Bawaslu issued Recommendation No. 279 on December 16, 2024 on the annulment of the certification of the vote recapitulation results pending the complete and transparent submission of all election result documents. Such documents include a repeat data matching for Ugimba, Agisiga, and Hitadipa Districts.

“The Intan Jaya KPU refused to annul the certification of the results of the vote recapitulation in Intan Jaya Regency,” said Otniel.

Bawaslu then issued an advisory letter on December 16, 2024 which recommended the KPU to set a delayed recapitulation schedule. "Finally, based on the supervisory report of the Intan Jaya Bawaslu in the district-level recapitulation, the vote acquisition of each candidate pair are as follows: Candidate Pair 1 acquired 43,535 votes, Candidate Pair 2 acquired 24,995 votes, Candidate Pair 3 acquired 19,098 votes, Candidate Pair 4 acquired 20,672 votes, and Candidate Pair 5 acquired 15,884 votes," reported Otniel.

Also read: Intan Jaya KPU Accused of Secretly Certifying Elected Candidate

In the preliminary hearing, Candidate Pair 2 Marten Tipagau-Malianus Belau (Petitioners) alleged the Intan Jaya KPU to forgo the recapitulation that had been initially scheduled to begin on December 13 and to finish on December 14, 2024. Due to protests from the witnesses of Candidate Pairs 2, 3, 4, and 5, the recapitulation session was postponed. On December 16, 2024, a digital document containing Intan Jaya KPU Decree No. 1042 of 2024 dated December 14, 2024 was broadcast via WhatsApp text.

In their petitums, the Petitioners requested the Court to annul the Intan Jaya KPU Decree No. 1042 of 2024 on the certification of the regent election results dated December 14, 2024 at 23:30 WIT or to annul such decree as long as it pertains to the vote acquisition in Agisiga, Tomosiga, Hitadipa, Wandai, and Ugimba Districts.

Furthermore, the Petitioners requested the Court to declare the correct vote acquisition as petitioned by the Petitioners, with Candidate Pair 1 Anner Maisini-Elias Igapa obtaining 30,536 votes, Candidate Pair 2 Marten Tipagau-Malianus Belau 31,762 votes, Candidate Pair 3 Apollos Bagau-Tetairus Widigipa 23,000 votes, Candidate Pair 4 Oni Dendegau-Aguni Tapani 23,920 votes, and Candidate Pair 5 Bernadus Kobogau-Melianus Agimbau 15,776 votes. Alternatively, they had requested that the Court order the KPU to carry out a revote in the regency or at least in Agisiga, Tomosiga, Hitadipa, Wandai, and Ugimba Districts.

Author : Nawir Arsyad Akbar

Editor : Lulu Anjarsari P.

PR : 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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