The ruling hearing for case No. 67/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 on the 2024 Aru Islands regent election results dispute, Tuesday (2/4/2025). Photo by MKRI.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) dismissed the petition for case No. 67/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 on the 2024 Aru Islands regent election results dispute. The ruling for this case, filed by regent-vice regent candidate 1 Temy Oersopiny and Hady Djumaidy Saleh, was delivered by Chief Justice Suhartoyo along with the other eight constitutional justices in the plenary courtroom on Tuesday, February 4, 2025.

“[The Court] adjudicated, on the petition’s subject matter, to declare the Petitioners’ petition inadmissible,” stated Chief Justice Suhartoyo reading out the verdict.

In its legal consideration, delivered by Constitutional Justice M. Guntur Hamzah, the Court emphasized the votes margin between the Petitioner and the Relevant Party candidate pair 2 Timotius Kaidel and Mohamad Djumpa should not exceed 2 percent (or 1,037 votes).

Based on the vote results, the Petitioners received 20,443 votes and the Related Party obtained 31,456 votes, resulting in a margin of 11,013 votes (or 21.22 percent). Because this difference did not meet the required threshold, the Court determined the Petitioners lacked the legal standing to file a dispute regarding the election results.

“The Petitioners lacked legal standing to file the a quo petition. As such, the Respondent’s and the Relevant Party’s exceptions asserting the Petitioners’ lack of legal standing were legally sound,” explained Constitutional Justice M. Guntur Hamzah.

At the preliminary hearing on Tuesday, January 14, the Petitioners raised an issue of formal requirement related to the certification of the Relevant Party as a candidate for the 2024 Aru Islands regent election. The reason was the findings of the Audit Board (BPK) regarding the overpayment of the Tunguwatu-Nafar road construction project amounting to Rp 4,255,390,305.50.

Although the BPK had issued a recommendation, the Petitioners said that the Aru Islands Regency KPU (Elections Commission) still declared the Relevant Party a regent candidate. According to the Petitioners, this was a violation of the applicable provisions, so the certification of the Relevant Party as a regent candidate did not fulfill the formal requirements.

Author       : Ashri Fadilla
Editor        : Tiara Agustina
Translator : Ryan Alfian (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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