Violations Unproven, Threshold Not Met, Sarmi Election Petition Dismissed
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The Petitioners’ legal counsel at the ruling hearing for case No. 154/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 on the 2024 Sarmi regent election results dispute, Wednesday (2/5/2025). Photo by MKRI/Ifa.


JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) dismissed the petition for case No. 154/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 on the 2024 Sarmi regent election results dispute. The ruling for this case, filed by Candidate Pair 3 Agus Festus Moar–Mustafa Arnold Muzakkar, was delivered by Chief Justice Suhartoyo along with the other eight constitutional justices in the plenary courtroom on Wednesday, February 5, 2025.

“[The Court] adjudicated, on the petition’s subject matter, declaring the Petitioners’ petition inadmissible,” stated Chief Justice Suhartoyo reading out the verdict.

In its legal considerations, the Court stated it was not convinced of the Petitioners’ arguments of the election violations. Therefore, it could not disregard the provisions of Article 158 of the Regional Election Law, which sets a threshold for filing a regional election results dispute petition.

Among the unproven allegations were the structured, systematic, and massive (TSM) violations involving vote buying.

“The Court lacks confidence in the validity of the arguments of the Petitioners’ petition. Therefore, on the a quo petition, there is no reason to disregard the enforcement of Article 158 of Law No. 10 of 2016 concerning the Petitioners’ legal standing,” said Constitutional Justice Daniel Yusmic P. Foekh.

In accordance with Article 158 of Regional Election Law, the vote difference has to be at most 2 percent, or in this case 434 votes, for the Petitioners to file a petition.

However, according to the vote count recapitulation, the Petitioners acquired 1,353 votes and the Relevant Party 13,521 votes. Thus, the vote margin between the two—12,168 votes or over 56 percent—far exceeded the threshold. Hence, the Petitioners had no legal standing to file the dispute petition.

“The Court views that the Petitioners had no legal standing to file the a quo petition. Therefore, the Respondent’s and the Relevant Party’s exceptions that the Petitioners did not have legal standing were reasonable according to law,” said Justice Foekh.

Also read:

Smear Campaign and Vote Buying Revealed at Sarmi Regent Election Hearing

Sarmi KPU Denies Allegations of Meeting with Regent Candidate

At the preliminary hearing, the Petitioners argued about structured, systematic, and massive (TSM) vote buying. They also mentioned the Respondent had ignored this violation. The Petitioners suspected the Relevant Party of a smear campaign against Yanni, candidate pair 1. They claimed that a banner rejecting Yanni’s candidacy had been placed on a pickup truck that circled Sarmi Regency. They also argued that religious leaders functioned to urge people to not vote for candidate pairs from a particular religion.

Therefore, the Petitioners in their petitums requested that the Court annul the Sarmi Regency KPU decree on the certification of the recapitulation of the 2024 Sarmi Regency election results.

Author              : Ashri Fadilla
Editor                : N. Rosi
Translator         : M. Hafidh Al Mukmin/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.


Wednesday, February 05, 2025 | 10:52 WIB 13