Muna Regent Election Dispute Dismissed Over Vote Threshold Limit

The Petitioners’ legal counsel, Aswan Askun attending the ruling hearing for Case No.84/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 on the Muna Regency election results dispute, Tuesday (2/4/2025). Photo by MKRI/Ifa.

JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) dismissed the petition for case No. 84/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 on the 2024 Muna regent election results dispute. The decree for the petition’s withdrawal, filed by regent-vice regent candidate 2 (La Ode M Rajiun Tumada and Purnama Ramadhan), was delivered by Chief Justice Suhartoyo alongside the other eight constitutional justices.

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

In its legal consideration, the Court stated that the Petitioners did not meet the provisions for filing a petition under Article 158 of the Regional Election Law No 10 of 2016, which specifies the threshold for filing the election results dispute. Given Muna Regency’s population of 231,980 people, a vote margin of less than 2 percent is required to file the dispute.

The votes margin between the Petitioners and the Relevant Party (regent-vice regent candidate 1) exceeded this threshold. Based on the vote results, the Petitioners obtained 47,655 votes, while the Relevant Party received 53,908 votes, showing a vote margin of 6,253 votes (5.29 percent).

Therefore, the Court determined the Petitioners lacked legal standing to file a dispute regarding the election results.

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

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In the petition, the Petitioners had outlined the deployment of state civil apparatus (ASN) to rally support for the Relevant Party. The Petitioners also alleged them to have exploited a number of programs and facilities of the Muna Regency Government during the campaign period. The Petitioners further alleged that the Respondent had shown bias in favor of the Relevant Party, such as the banner containing the call to vote for the Relevant Party and the printing of the Relevant Party’s vision-mission book, which included the Muna Regency Government logo.

Based on the arguments, the Petitioners requested that the Court annul the Muna KPU decree on the certification of the 2024 Muna regent election vote count recapitulation, disqualify the Relevant Party, and order a revote involving only the remaining four candidate pairs.

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Muna Regent Election Dispute Dismissed Over Vote Threshold Limit