The Petitioners and their legal counsel at the ruling hearing for case No. 308/PHPU.GUB-XXIII/2025 on the 2024 Central Papua gubernatorial election results dispute, Wednesday (2/5/2025). Photo by MKRI/Teguh.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — On Wednesday, February 5, 2025, the Constitutional Court (MK) dismissed the petition for case No. 308/PHPU.GUB-XXIII/2025 on the 2024 Central Papua gubernatorial election results dispute. This case was filed by governor-vice governor candidate pair 2 Natalis Tabuni and Titus Natkime.

Chief Justice Suhartoyo presided over the ruling hearing with the other eight justices in the plenary courtroom.

“On the petition’s subject matter, [the Court] declares the Petitioners’ petition for this case inadmissible,” said Chief Justice Suhartoyo delivering the verdict.

In its legal considerations, delivered by Constitutional Justice Daniel Yusmic P. Foekh, the Court asserted that the Petitioners’ arguments failed to convince the Court of the vote-buying allegation in Puncak Jaya and Deiyai Regencies. As such, the Court decided not to override the threshold under Article 158 of Law No. 10 of 2016 (Regional Election Law).

“The Court lacked confidence in the validity of the Petitioners’ main arguments. Therefore, the Court viewed no reason to disregard the provision of Article 158 of Law No. 10 of 2016 on the Petitioners’ legal standing,” explained Justice Foekh.

The Court also did not find any special incident in this case; therefore, the Petitioner must meet the threshold to file the petition on the Central Papua election results dispute, a maximum of 2 percent (22,105 votes).

However, the Petitioners only obtained 106,664 votes, whereas the Relevant Party candidate pair 3 Meki Nawipa and Deinas Geley received 502,624 votes. As such, the votes margin between the two reached 395,960 votes or 35.8 percent.

Given the unfulfilled threshold, the Court viewed the Petitioners lacked legal standing to file the petition. “According to the Court, the Petitioners did not have legal standing to file the a quo petition,” stated Justice Foekh.

Also read:

Money Politics in Central Papua Noken System Highlighted

Meki-Deinas Deny Allegation of Vote Buying in Central Papua Election

In the petitums, the Petitioners claimed that vote buying in the Central Papua gubernatorial election through financial contributions from the Relevant Party to the PPD (district election committee) in Deiyai Regency. These included Rp700 million in West Tigi, Rp600 million in East Digi, Rp500 million in Kapiraya, Rp750 million in Tigi, and Rp500 million in Bodokapa. Additionally, in Puncak Jaya Regency, the Petitioners alleged that the head of a district political party had distributed Rp23 billion to manipulate the vote count under the noken system.

The Central Papua gubernatorial election results dispute petitions were also submitted by two other candidate pairs, Candidate Pair 4 Willem Wandik-Aloisius Giyai with Case No. 295/PHPU.GUB-XXIII/2025 and Candidate Pair 01 Wempi Wetipo-Agustinus Anggaibak with Case No. 309/PHPU.GUB-XXIII/2025.

(*) The noken voting system is carried out by communities in Papua, either through public agreement on vote allocation or through the delegation of votes to a tribal leader.

Author                           : Ashri Fadilla
Editor                            : N. Rosi
Translator                     : Ryan Alfian/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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