The Petitioners’ legal counsel attending the ruling hearing for Case No. 245/PHPU.GUB-XXIII/2025 on the North Maluku gubernatorial election results dispute, Wednesday (2/5/2025) in the plenary courtroom. Photo by MKRI/Bayu.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — On Wednesday, February 5, 2025, the Constitutional Court (MK) dismissed the petition during the ruling hearing on the 2024 North Maluku gubernatorial election results dispute. This case was filed by candidate pair 2 Aliong Mus-Sahril Tahir. Chief Justice Suhartoyo presided over the hearing accompanied by the other eight constitutional justices in the plenary courtroom.

In its legal considerations, delivered by Constitutional Justice Enny Nurbaningsih, the Court explained that the Petitioners in Case No. 245/PHPU.GUB-XXIII/2025 had failed to explain the arguments regarding legal standing adequately. Specifically, the Petitioners did not provide reasons addressing the formal requirements for legal standing as stipulated in Article 158 of Law No. 10 of 2016 (Regional Election Law).

To achieve the threshold requirements outlined in the article, the Petitioners had to provide specific, case-based explanations of the alleged structured, systematic, and massive (TSM) violations of the election process or errors in the vote counting by the Respondent (KPU).

“The Court believes that, despite the Petitioners being the 2024 North Maluku gubernatorial candidate pair, they did not fulfill the requirements for filing a petition as referred to in Article 158 paragraph (1) letter a of Law No. 10 of 2016. Therefore, according to the Court, the Petitioners did not have any legal standing to file the a quo petition. Thus, the Respondent’s and the Relevant Party’s exceptions that the Petitioners had no legal standing are legally justified,” explained Justice Enny.

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The significant vote margin between Candidate Pair 02 Aliong Mus-Sahril Tahir (Petitioners) and Candidate Pair 04 Sherly Joanda-Sarbin Sehe (Relevant Party)—the most voted candidates—was suspected to be caused by structured, systematic, and massive (TSM) violations. This was conveyed by the Petitioners’ legal counsel Fadly S. Tuanany at the preliminary hearing for the North Maluku gubernatorial election results dispute on Friday, January 10, 2025.

At the preliminary hearing chaired by Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat, Fadly stated that the violations involved state civil apparatus in the North Maluku Provincial Government and other stakeholders, such as the North Maluku Bawaslu (Elections Supervisory Body) and acting governor Abubakar Abdullah. He alleged structured, systematic, and massive violations committed by the Relevant Party, the North Maluku Provincial KPU (Elections Commission), and Bawaslu.

One of the alleged violations was the preferential treatment given to the Relevant Party during medical examination at Gatot Subroto Army Central Hospital (RSPAD) Jakarta. The Petitioners asserted that other candidate pairs underwent their examinations at Chason Boesuri Ternate Hospital, as stipulated by the KPU decree.

Author              : Utami Argawati
Editor               : Fitri Yuliana
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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