The Petitioners' legal counsel attending the ruling hearing for case No. 230/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 PHPU on the Mentawai Islands regent election results dispute, Wednesday (2/5/2025). Photo by MKRI/Bayu.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) dismissed the petition for Case No. 230/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 on the 2024 Mentawai Islands regent election results dispute. Chief Justice Suhartoyo delivered the verdict at the ruling hearing for this case on Wednesday, February 5, 2025 in the plenary courtroom.

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

In its legal consideration, delivered by Constitutional Justice Daniel Yusmic P. Foekh, the Court explained that the Petitioners did not have legal standing to file the petition because they did not fulfill the provisions for filing a petition under Article 158 of the Regional Election Law. The article demanded that for the Petitioners (Candidate Pair 1 Rijel Samaloisa and Yosep Sorogdok) to be able to file an election results dispute to the Court, the vote difference between them and the Relevant Party has to be 2 percent at the highest.

However, they had a vote margin of 2.3 percent or 0.3 percent above the threshold with the Relevant Party (Candidate Pair 3 Rinto Wardana and Jakop Saguruk).

In the vote count recapitulation certified by the Mentawai Islands Regency KPU (Elections Commission), the Petitioners obtained 17,403 votes and the Relevant Party 18,686 votes, making the difference 1,283 votes. Nevertheless, the Petitioners still did not earn the legal standing to file a petition to the Court.

“The Petitioners did not fulfill the requirements to file a petition as stated in Article 158 paragraph (2) letter a of Law No. 10 of 2016. Thus, according to the Court, the Petitioners did not have the legal standing to file the a quo petition,” said Justice Foekh.

The Court could not disregard Article 158 since the Petitioners could not present convincing arguments to the Court to do so.

“There is no reason to postpone the enforcement of the provisions of Article 158 of Law No. 10 of 2016 regarding the Petitioners' legal standing,” Justice Foekh stressed.

Also read:

Rijel-Yosep: Mentawai Islands KPU Ignores Revote Recommendation

Mentawai Islands Elections Commission Asserts Compliance with Revote Recommendation

At the preliminary hearing on Friday, January 10, 2025, the Petitioners argued the polling carried out by the Respondent had not followed the procedure. For example, the Respondent dismissed Bawaslu’s (Elections Supervisory Body) recommendation for a revote, because it was withdrawn before its implementation. The recommendation for a revote was not implemented at three polling stations (TPS): TPS 8 in Sinaka Village and TPS 1 and 2 in Cimpungan Village. The Petitioners also highlighted the case in which one person had received nine ballots at TPS 12 of Sinaka. There was also a case in which three high school students voted without showing their IDs and used other people’s C-notice forms (voting invitations).

Author              : Ashri Fadilla
Editor                : Tiara Agustina
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.

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