JAKARTA, MKRI - The Constitutional Court (MK) declared the petition filed by Udiansyah and Abd. Karim as registered voters inadmissible. The Court considered that them not having legal standing as stipulated in Article 157 paragraph (4) of Law No. 10 of 2016 and Article 4 paragraph (1) of the Constitutional Court Regulation (PMK) No. 3 of 2024.

The Decree No. 06/PHPU.WAKO-XXIII/2025 was delivered on Tuesday, February 4, 2025 at the ruling hearing on dispute over the 2024 Banjarbaru mayoral election results, presided over by Chief Justice Suhartoyo alongside the other eight constitutional justices.

“[The Court] declares the Petitioners’ petition inadmissible,” said Chief Justice Suhartoyo.

Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat asserted that the Petitioners classified themselves as individual citizens, which are not included in the category of “election participants” or “election observers” as regulated in Article 157 paragraph (4) of Law No. 10 of 2016 and Article 4 paragraph (1) of PMK No. 3 of 2024.

“With regard to this matter, although the Petitioners requested that the Court override or delay the application of the formal requirements regarding the Petitioners’ legal standing as individual citizens, as the Court has considered above, the legal standing requirements are related to the Petitioners’ qualifications in the dispute petition over election results, and the reasons were not strong and convincing enough for the Court to override these requirements,” Justice Arief explained.

Based on the legal considerations above, according to the Court, the Respondent’s and the Relevant Parties’ exceptions regarding the qualification of the Petitioners’ legal standing of were legally reasonable.

“Because the Petitioners did not have legal standing to file the petition, the petition’s subject matter, other exceptions by the Respondent and Relevant Party, and other matters were not considered further because they were considered irrelevant,” Justice Arief stated.

Also read:

Banjarbaru Mayor Election: Unprinted Ballots with Empty Columns Questioned

Banjarbaru KPU Denies Arguments from Udiansyah-Abd. Karim

The Petitioners of Case No. 06/PHPU.WAKO-XXIII/2025 explained that the 2024 Banjarbaru mayor election was initially followed by two pairs of candidates as follows: Lisa Halaby-Wartono (Candidate Pair Number 1) and Aditya Mufti Ariffin-Said Abdullah (Candidate Pair Number 2). However, after Candidate Pair Number 2 was disqualified by the KPU, there should only be Candidate Pair Number 1 left. In the provisions of the Regional Election Law, if there is only one candidate pair left, then the election must be conducted in a single-candidate format against an blank vote.

However, the Banjarbaru City KPU (Elections Commission) printed ballot papers that included the photos and serial numbers of Candidate Pair Number 1 and Candidate Pair Number 2, who had been disqualified. As a result, votes for Candidate Pair Number 2 were declared invalid. Based on the results of the vote count, only 31.5% of the votes were declared valid, while 68.5% of the votes were considered invalid.

The Petitioners asserted that the 2024 Banjarbaru mayoral election had violated voters’ constitutional right to vote. This is because it eliminated the right to vote for a blank vote in the event of a single candidate.

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.