A ruling hearing for case No. 249/PHPU.GUB-XXIII/2025 on the 2024 Southeast Sulawesi gubernatorial election results dispute, Tuesday (2/4/2025). Photo by MKRI/Teguh.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) – The Constitutional Court (MK) dismissed the petition for case No. 249/PHPU.GUB-XXIII/2025 on the 2024 Southeast Sulawesi gubernatorial election results dispute, filed by Candidate Pair 4 Tina Nur Alam-La Ode Muh Ihsan Taufik Ridwan. The Court explained that the Petitioners did not have legal standing as they failed to meet the formal requirements stipulated in Article 158 of Law No. 10 of 2016 on the Regional Election Law.

“On the petition’s merit, [the Court] dismisses the Petitioners’ petition,” stated Chief Justice Suhartoyo accompanied by the other eight constitutional justices at the ruling hearing on Tuesday, February 4, 2025.

Constitutional Justice Arsul Sani said that the Court saw no reason to disregard the provisions of Article 158 of the Regional Election Law regarding the Petitioners’ legal standing as a formal requirement to file a petition. The Court also did not find any special incident that could be considered to have harmed the 2024 Southeast Sulawesi gubernatorial election so that it could be used as a reason to disregard Article 158. Therefore, the Court considers it irrelevant to continue this petition to an evidentiary hearing.

Justice Arsul explained that the difference in votes between the Petitioners and the most-voted candidate pair to be able to submit a petition for the 2024 Southeast Sulawesi gubernatorial election dispute was 22,194 votes as 1.5 percent of the total valid votes from the final vote count certified by the Provincial KPU (Elections Commission) of 1,479,591 votes. Meanwhile, the vote margin between the Petitioners (308,373 votes) and the Relevant Party as the most-voted candidate pair (775,183 votes) was 466,810 votes or 31.55 percent. Thus, it exceeded the 1.5-percent requirement.

“[The Court declares that] the Petitioners did not have any legal standing to file the a quo petition,” said Justice Arsul.

The Court stated that the letter of revocation of legal counsel and withdrawal of the petition by La Ode Muh Ihsan was not carried out properly because it was only submitted to the Court without being submitted to the legal counsel and the absence of submission to the legal counsel was confirmed at the examination hearing on January 22, 2025. Hence, the Court rejected the withdrawal request.

However, despite the Petitioner being one of the candidate pair, the arguments submitted in the petition were legally groundless, so the Court should enforce the provisions of Article 158 of the Regional Election Law. The argument—including forged signature of the chairperson of the Southeast Sulawesi Provincial Hanura Party executive board; administrative violations; and a structured, systematic, and massive (TSM) vote buying in 13 regencies/cities in Southeast Sulawesi—have been refuted at the examination hearing.

“Other evidence submitted by the Petitioners in the form of photos and videos can be considered too vague to justify the alleged vote buying. This evidence was not sufficient to convince the Court regarding structured, systematic, and massive vote buying so that it could have influenced the vote results of the 2024 Southeast Sulawesi gubernatorial election,” said Justice Arsul.

Also read:

SE Sulawesi Election Petitioners Withdrew Petition, Lose Legal Standing

SE. Sulawesi Vice Governor Candidate Withdraws Petition, Governor Candidate Proceeds

In the petitums, the Petitioners requested the Court to annul the Southeast Sulawesi Provincial KPU (Elections Commission) Decree No. 320 of 2024 on the certification of the 2024 Southeast Sulawesi gubernatorial election results regarding the vote acquisition of Candidate Pair 2 Andi Sumangerukka-Hugua; to disqualify Candidate Pair 2 Andi Sumangerukka-Hugua; and to certify the correct vote acquisition according to the Petitioners as follows: Candidate Pair 1 149,642 votes, Candidate Pair 2 disqualified, Candidate Pair 3 246,393 votes, and Candidate Pair 4 308,373 votes; or order the Respondent to do a revote for at all polling stations in 13 regencies/cities in Southeast Sulawesi Province with only three candidate pairs, participating without Candidate Pair 2.

Author: Mimi Kartika
Editor : Tiara Agustina
Translator: Syifa Amelia/Yuniar Widiastuti (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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