Ardilafiza testifying as an expert for the Respondent at an evidentiary hearing for Case No. 232/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 disputing the 2024 Jeneponto regent elections results, Thursday (2/13/2025). Photo by MKRI/Teguh.
JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) held an evidentiary hearing to present experts and witnesses for Case No. 232/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025 regarding the dispute over the 2024 Jeneponto regent elections results on Thursday, February 13, 2025. The experts presented at the hearing had differing views on the Petitioners’ argument that the Jeneponto Regency KPU (Elections Commission) as the Respondent had dismissed the recommendation from Bawaslu (Elections Supervisory Body) for a revote at 10 polling stations.
Former deputy chief justice Aswanto as the expert for the Petitioners, Candidate Pair Number 3 Muhammad Sarif and Moch Noer Alim Qalby, stated that the dispute arose because the Jeneponto KPU had refused to conduct Bawaslu’s recommendation regarding the revote at several polling stations due to alleged election violations. It is the duty of the election organizers to maintain the purity of an election by conducting recommendations in order to correct the errors by administrators.
“I conclude that this case actually reached the Constitutional Court because there was a recommendation from Bawaslu that was not implemented by the KPU,” Aswanto stated before Deputy Chief Justice Saldi Isra (panel chair) and Constitutional Justices Ridwan Mansyur and Arsul Sani on panel 2.
Aswanto said that if the mistake were not corrected, it would have an impact on the legitimacy of the elected leader in the next five years and could make election organizers make the same mistakes over and over again. As a result, the public would not to trust election organizers in conducting their duties. This can be seen from the increasing number of parties who feel aggrieved by the action, thus seeking the purity of election votes at the Constitutional Court.
“I think if the actual violations committed by the organizers were corrected properly, in my opinion, there should not be too many election disputes that go to the Constitutional Court,” Aswanto explained.
Meanwhile, the Respondent’s expert Ardilafiza stated that Bawaslu’s recommendation was only an advisory and not legally binding. The KPU can respond to it by conducting a review based on the KPU regulations. So, the recommendation can also not be implemented as a whole, but only in part, based on the applied regulation.
He also stated that the implementation of a revote must be considered more comprehensively because of the potential consequences. All recommendations must be based on the provisions of existing regulations.
“The KPU has done a review to assess whether this recommendation can be implemented or not. It stated that it would not implement the recommendation, but I do not know whether there was correspondence between the KPU and Bawaslu. It is an administrative matter,” he explained.
As an expert for the Relevant Party Candidate Number 2 Paris Yasir-Islam Iskandar, Central Bawaslu chairman of 2017-2022 Abhan stated that the Central Bawaslu Circular Letter No. 117 of 2024 on the unification of perception on crucial issues of supervision, voting, and vote counting in the regional head election, which was used as a basis by the Jeneponto Bawaslu for finding the violations that could allegedly lead to recommendations for a revote, was contradictory to the Regional Election Law.
“Article 112 (of the Regional Election Law) has clearly stated, especially in letter e, that more than one voter who is not registered as a voter gets the opportunity to vote at a polling station, so more than one voter. While in Circular Letter No. 117, it is only one. So, of course, this is very contradictory,” said Abhan.
Also read:
KPU Ignored Revote Recommendation in Jeneponto Regent Election
KPU Jeneponto Accuses Petitioners of Vote Manipulation
Jeneponto Regent Candidate Pair 1 Muhammad Sarif and Moch Noer Alim Qalby argued that the vote difference between them and Candidate Pair 2 Paris Yasir and Islam Iskandar was because the Jeneponto KPU as Respondent had dismissed the recommendation for a revote by the district elections supervisory committee (Panwascam). The Petitioners also complained that there had been similar autographs in the list of voters who voted at the polling stations, resulting in a violation of voting rights.
This was revealed by the Petitioners’ mandate witness Aswar Anas during the recapitulation at the West Bangkala District level. Aswar stated that several voters had been represented by other people during voting. For example, when he went to Jakarta to attend a hearing at the Constitutional Court, he visited one of the residents of West Bangkala who lived in Jakarta who claimed not to have used his voting rights but was listed as present at the voting day and had cast his vote.
“It turns out that he did not come, Your Honors. I paid attention to the DPT (permanent voter list) attendance list, and it turns out that his signature was different from that on the electronic ID card (KTP),” said Aswar.
In their petitums, the Petitioners requested the Court to annul the Jeneponto KPU Decree No. 799 of 2024 on the certification of the 2024 regent election results dated December 8, 2024 and to declare the lawful vote acquisition as deemed correct according the Petitioners, stating Candidate Pair 1 Efendi Al Qadri Mulyadi-Andry Suryana Arief Bulu to have won 6,856 votes, Candidate Pair 2 Paris Yasir-Islam Iskandar 83,657 votes, Candidate Pair 3 Muhammad Sarif-Moch Noer Alim Qalby 85,547 votes, and Candidate Pair 4 Syamsuddin Karlos-M Syafruddin Nurdin 26,119 votes. At the very least, they requested the Court to order the KPU to conduct a revote at 25 polling stations.
Also read:
The Petition for Case No. 232/PHPU.BUP-XXIII/2025
Response by the Respondent
Statement by Bawaslu
Statement by the Relevant Party
Author : Mimi Kartika
Editor : N. Rosi
PR : Fauzan F
Translator : Dinita Aktivia/Yuniar Widiastuti (NL) (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.
Thursday, February 13, 2025 | 16:48 WIB 241