The Respondent’s legal counsel Matheus Mamun Sare during showing a noken in the examination hearing to hear the Respondent, the Relevant Party, and Bawaslu for Case No. 242/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025. Photo by MKRI/Ifa

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JAKARTA (MKRI) – The voting and vote counting in Nduga Regency using the noken system took place on November 27, 2024. Following that, from November 28 to December 3, 2024, a recapitulation of the vote count results at the district level was conducted, with the final recapitulation scheduled for December 6-7, 2024.

This was delivered by the Nduga Regency KPU (Respondent) legal counsel Matheus Mamun Sare, in the examination hearing to hear the Respondent, the Relevant Party, and Bawaslu for Case No. 242/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 concerning the 2024 Nduga Regency regent election results dispute on Thursday, January 30, 2025. The hearing was chaired by Chief Justice Suhartoyo and Constitutional Justices Foekh and M. Guntur Hamzah on panel 1.

"The 2024 Nduga Regency election was conducted using the noken system and all stages were centered in Kenyam District. This is based on a mutual agreement by determining logistics distribution points and TPS (polling station) mapping for all electoral districts in Nduga Regency," explained Matheus in response to the Candidate Pair 1 Namia Gwijangge and Obed Gwijangge’s petition.

Meanwhile, Candidate Pair 2 Dinar Kelnea–Yoas Beon (Relevant Party), through their legal counsel Habel Rumbiak stated that the Petitioners only contested the vote acquisition from 20 districts. "However, the evidence presented for these 20 districts clearly shows the actual results for each candidate: the Relevant Party received 51,815 votes, while the Petitioners received 46,167 votes. No objections from the Petitioners’ witnesses in the plenary recapitulation of results at the regency level," explained Habel.

Also read: Alleged Intimidation in Nduga Regent Election Disclosed

In the preliminary hearing on Thursday, January 16, 2025, the Petitioners requested that the Court annul the Nduga Regency KPU Decree No. 829 of 2024 on the certification of the 2024 Nduga Regency election results. They mentioned the vote count as follows: The Petitioners received 46,167 votes and Candidate Pair 02 Dinar Kelnea–Yoas Beon obtained 51,815 votes, with a total of 97,982 valid votes. However, the Petitioners contested this result, asserting that they had received 50,131 votes, while Candidate Pair 02 secured 47,852 votes, with a total of 97,983 valid votes.

The Petitioners attributed the difference in vote acquisition to several factors, including intimidation by the Indigenous Community Institution, political party leaders, and the candidate pair 02 campaign team; the involvement of ASN at the TPS (polling station) level in influencing voters to support a particular candidate pair; vote reduction for the Petitioners at both the TPS and PPD (regional election committee) /PPK (district election committee) levels; and further vote reduction at the Regency KPU level.

Thus, the Petitioners requested that the Court annul the Nduga Regency KPU Decree No. 829 of 2024 concerning the certification of the 2024 Nduga Regency election results dated December 7, 2024 at 07:00 Local Time regarding the vote acquisition in 21 districts, Alama, Inikgal, Iniye, Mam, Mbua Tengah, Mbulmu Yalma, Mbuwa, Kora, Pija, Wutpaga, Wusi, Pasir Putih Paro, Nirkuri, Kenyam, Embetpem, Neggeagin, Mugi, Dal, Krepkuri, and Gearek. They also requested that the Court certify the vote acquisition results for the 2024 Nduga Regency candidate elections, which according to the Petitioners are correct as follows: Candidate Pair 01 obtained 59,068 votes and Candidate Pair Number 02 obtained 39,914 votes, with a total of 97,982 valid votes.

(*) The noken voting system is carried out by communities in Papua, either through public agreement on vote allocation or through the delegation of votes to a tribal leader.

Author               : Sri Pujianti.

Editor                : N. Rosi.

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.

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