The Petitioners’ attending the ruling hearing for case No. 69/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 on the 2024 Morotai Islands regent election results dispute, Tuesday (2/4/2025) in the plenary courtroom. Photo by MKRI/Bayu.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) – The Constitutional Court (MK) dismissed the petition for case No. 69/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 on the 2024 Morotai Islands regent election results dispute, filed by Morotai Islands regent-vice regent candidates 01 Deny Garuda and Muhammad Qubais Baba. The decision was delivered at the ruling hearing held in the plenary courtroom on Tuesday, February 4, 2025 by Chief Justice Suhartoyo alongside the other eight constitutional justices.

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

The Court’s considerations in this decision concern, among others, the threshold for the vote margin between the Petitioners and Candidate Pair 03 Rusli Sibua and Rio Christian Pawane (Relevant Party).

Based on Article 158 of Law No. 10 of 2016 (Regional Election Law), the Petitioners can only file a petition if the vote margin with the Relevant Party is a maximum of 2 percent or 893 votes. However, the actual vote difference was 2,697 votes or 6.04 percent, exceeding the stipulated threshold. Therefore, the Court concluded that the Petitioners lacked legal standing in this case.

“Based on the legal considerations above, the Court finds that the Petitioners did not have the legal standing to file the a quo petition,” said Justice Daniel Yusmic P. Foekh.

Also read:

Allegation of Fake Identity in Morotai Island Regent Election

KPU Confirms Morotai Island Candidate’s Employment and Liability

At the preliminary hearing, the Petitioners alleged fake identity on the employment column had been listed on the regent candidate 03’s ID card, citing in the column it should be ASN, not self-employed.

With the status as a civil servant, the Petitioners argued that the Respondent should not have approved the candidacy of the Relevant Party. They also argued that the Relevant Party had passed the requirements for regent candidate while having a debt of Rp92 billion based on the 2012 Tobelo District Court decision.

A similar petition was previously filed by Candidate Pair 2 Syamsuddin Banjo and Judi Robert Efendis Dadana, registered under case No. 19/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025. However, like this case, the Constitutional Court also ruled that the petition by Syamsuddin-Judi inadmissible.

Also read:

Petition for Case No. 69/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025

Response by the Respondent

Statement by the Relevant Party

Statement by Bawaslu

Author              : Ashri Fadilla
Editor                : N. Rosi
Translator         : Nazila Rikhusshuba/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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