The Petitioners’ legal counsel attending the ruling hearing for Case No.262/PHPU.GUB-XXIII/2025 on the East Kalimantan gubernatorial election results dispute in the plenary courtroom, Wednesday (2/5/2025). Photo by MKRI/Bayu.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) dismissed the petition for case No. 262/PHPU.GUB-XXIII/2025 on the 2024 East Kalimantan gubernatorial election results dispute. This case was filed by governor-vice governor candidate pair 1 (Isran Noor-Hadi Mulyadi). Chief Justice Suhartoyo presided over the ruling hearing on Wednesday, February 5, 2025.

“[the Court] ruled the Petitioners’ petition inadmissible,” stated Chief Justice Suhartoyo delivered the ruling with the other eight Justices in the plenary courtroom.

In its consideration, delivered by Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat, the Court addressed the political cartel argument to arrange a single candidate pair in the East Kalimantan governor election. Justice Arief explained that political parties can nominate candidates for regional heads, especially after the Court Decision No. 62/PUU-XXII/2024 which set the threshold for nominating regional head candidates between 6.5-10 percent.

This new threshold prevents political party domination in candidate nominations, minimizing single candidates in regional head elections.

“Considering the legal facts above, [the Court] did not find the political parties buy up as argued by the Petitioners. As such, the a quo petition is legally unreasonable,” stated Justice Arief.

Consequently, the Court upheld the applicability of Article 158 paragraph 2 letter b of Law No. 10 of 2016 (Pilkada Law) on the threshold to file a petition. In the gubernatorial election, the Petitioners received 793,793 votes, while the Relevant Party obtained 996,399 votes, resulting in a vote margin of 202,606 votes (11.3 percent).

“Considering the above legal considerations, the Petitioners did not have legal standing to file the a quo petition,” asserted Justice Arief.

Also read:

Rudy-Seno Alleged Vote Buying in East Kalimantan Gubernatorial Election

KPU, Relevant Party Deny Alleged Political Cartels in East Kalimantan Election

At the preliminary hearing, the Petitioners divided the violations into four points, which are political cartels, vote buying, involvement of government officials and structures, and non-neutral election organizers.

The Petitioners witnessed an attempt to buy up all political parties in carrying a single candidate in the East Kalimantan gubernatorial election. But in the end, there were two candidate pairs contesting in the East Kalimantan gubernatorial election. The Petitioner was supported by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) and the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, candidate pair 2 (the Relevant Party) was supported by political parties within the Advanced Indonesia Coalition (KIM) Plus.

Author       : Nawir Arsyad Akbar

Editor        : Lulu Anjarsari P.

PR               : Tiara Agustina
Translator  : Ryan Alfian/FS (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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