The ruling hearing for case No. 21/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 on the 2024 Kuantan Singingi regent election results dispute, Tuesday (2/4/2025). Photo by MKRI/Bayu.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — The 2024 Kuantan Singingi regent election dispute petition, filed by Candidates Number 2 Adam and Sutoyo, was declared inadmissible. The Decree No. 21/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 was delivered by the Constitutional Court (MK) on Tuesday, February 4, 2025. The petition was deemed failing to meet the provisions on vote margin (threshold) under Article 158 paragraph 2 letter b of the Regional Election Law.

“On the merits of the petition, [the Court] declares the Petitioners’ petition inadmissible,” stated Chief Justice Suhartoyo, accompanied by the other eight constitutional justices.

In its legal considerations, the Court stated that to be able to file a petition for election dispute, the vote margin should be at most 1.5% multiplied by 194,111 votes (total valid votes), or 2,912 votes. However, the votes obtained by the Petitioners were 53,360 votes, while the votes obtained by the Relevant Party were 100,332 votes. Therefore, the difference in votes between the Petitioners and the Relevant Party was 46,972 votes (24.2%) or more than 2,912 votes.

“Based on the aforementioned legal considerations, the Court is of the opinion that although the Petitioners are a Candidate Pair in the 2024 Kuantan Singingi regent election, the Petitioners did not fulfill the provisions as referred to in Article 158 paragraph 2 letter b of Law No. 10 of 2016. Therefore, the Petitioners did not have legal standing to file the petition. Therefore, the Respondent and the Relevant Party’s claims that the Petitioners did not have legal standing were legally reasonable,” Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat emphasized when reading out the legal considerations.

The Petitioners argued that there had been a violation in the reshuffle of officials in Kuantan Singingi Regency on March 20-21 2024, with an inauguration based on a decree of the Kuantan Singingi regent. The Court found that the appointments and reshuffle had been approved by the Minister of Home Affairs based on a decree regarding the approval of appointments and inaugurations of administrator officials, supervisory officials, and functional officials within the Kuantan Singingi Regency Regional Government dated May 14, 2024.

Meanwhile, the Petitioners’ allegation regarding the violation in the evaluation of contract-based staff’s performance in the Kuantan Singingi Regency Government, who then recruited these staff members who had committed to gaining 20 votes per person in order to benefit the Relevant Party, was found to be untrue because this evaluation was conducted by the Kuantan Singingi Regency Government annually, not for the 2024 regent election only.

The Petitioners did not explain in detail the role or relationship of the Relevant Party in the implementation of this staff evaluation, because the evaluation was conducted by the acting regional secretary, and based on legal facts, Kuantan Singingi Regency Bawaslu (Elections Supervisory Body) had never received any report related to the Petitioners’ claims.

“Therefore, the Petitioners’ arguments regarding the reshuffle of officials and the evaluation of contract-based staff were unfounded based on law,” Justice Arief reads.

Also read:

Kuantan Singingi Incumbent Regent Suspected of Violations, Revote Requested

Kuantan Singingi KPU: Candidate Disqualification Outside Court’s Authority

At the preliminary hearing on Wednesday, January 8, 2025, the Petitioners accused incumbent regent and regent candidate Suhardiman Amby f abusing his authority to favor himself in the election through the distribution of special financial assistance to villages for the construction of traditional canoes. In the petition, the Petitioners revealed that Suhardiman Amby had issued Regent Regulation No. 23 of 2024 concerning special financial assistance to villages for the construction of traditional canoes in Kuantan Singingi Regency. This regulation was signed by Suhardiman on July 5, 2024, just a few months before the election.

Author               : Utami Argawati
Editor                : Lulu Anjarsari P.
PR                    : Tiara Agustina
Translator         : Dinita Aktivia/Yuniar Widiastuti (NL) (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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