JAKARTA, LEGAL LITERACY – The Constitutional Court (MK) held a follow-up hearing with the agenda of listening to the Respondent's answers, the Election Supervisory Body's (Bawaslu) statement, and the Relevant Party's statement for the General Election Result Dispute (PHPU) case for prospective members of the DPR, DPRD Provinsi/DPRA, DPRD Kabupaten/Kota/DPRK in the Aceh Special Region Province in the Aceh 2 Electoral District and the Pidie Jaya 1 Electoral District submitted by the National Mandate Party (PAN) represented by Zulkifli Hasan and Eddy Soeparno as Chairman of PAN and Secretary General of PAN.

The trial with case number 153-01-12-01/PHPU.DPR-DPRD-XXII/2024 was held in Panel Courtroom 3 on Monday (07/05/2024) with the Panel of Judges consisting of Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat accompanied by Constitutional Justice Anwar Usman and Constitutional Justice Enny Nurbaningsih.

In this trial, the Respondent provided an explanation regarding the Petitioner's request which in the previous preliminary hearing argued that there was a difference in the vote acquisition of prospective members of the Aceh Provincial People's Representative Council, Aceh 2 Electoral District and prospective members of the Regional People's Representative Council, Pidie Jaya 1 Electoral District.

No Inflation or Reduction of Votes Occurred

In its response, the KPU stated that the petitioner's request was vague or unclear (obscuur libel). Furthermore, in the subject matter of the case, the KPU stated that the petitioner's argument regarding the reduction of the Petitioner's votes and the inflation of votes carried out by the Respondent for the PPP was incorrect. Based on the vote recapitulation, the votes owned by the Petitioner were 24,284 votes and the PPP was 25,348 votes.

“The reduction of the Petitioner's votes and the inflation of the petitioner's votes are incorrect arguments. Based on the recapitulation, the Petitioner's votes are 24,284 votes and the PPP's are 25,348 votes,” said Irfan Yudha Oktara, as the Respondent's legal counsel.

In addition to the dispute with the PPP, the KPU also explained in its response regarding the difference argued by the Petitioner with the Aceh Party. According to the Respondent, there is no difference in votes as stated by the Petitioner.

“There is no difference for the Petitioner with the Aceh Party,” said Irfan Yudha Oktara.

Regarding the answer that has been explained, the Respondent asked the Court to decide in the exception, to accept and grant the Respondent's exception in its entirety. In the subject matter of the case, to reject the petitioner's entire request and declare that Decree of the General Election Commission Number 360 of 2024 is correct.

Bawaslu, in its statement, explained that at the Provincial Level there were no objections or special notes. However, Fahrul Rizha Yusuf as a representative of Bawaslu explained that when it reached the Provincial Level, the Bawaslu of the regency/city was handling the adjudication process of reports from the Petitioner. Regarding the acquisition of votes, Bawaslu emphasized that the acquisition of votes was the same as that read out by the Respondent.

Furthermore, Safwani as a representative from Bawaslu stated that the Pidie Regency Panwaslih on 01-07 March 2024 supervised the implementation of the plenary meeting for the recapitulation of the vote acquisition calculation results in Pidie Regency, based on the results of supervision for the election of prospective members of the Aceh People's Representative Council (DPRA) there was no correction of the vote acquisition of Political Parties, but for the election of prospective members of the Regency People's Representative Council (DPRK), there was a correction of the vote acquisition based on the objection of witnesses.

“The Pidie Regency Panwaslih on 01-07 March 2024 supervised the implementation of the plenary meeting for the recapitulation of the vote acquisition calculation results in Pidie Regency, based on the results of supervision for the election of prospective members of the Aceh People's Representative Council (DPRA) there was no correction of the vote acquisition of Political Parties, but for the election of prospective members of the Regency People's Representative Council (DPRK), there was a correction of the vote acquisition based on the objection of witnesses,” said Safwani.

The Application Contains Fundamental Errors

The PPP as a Relevant Party stated that the Petitioner's application was unclear (obscuur libel) in terms of vote comparison. The Petitioner's application which states that there is an error in the vote acquisition results, if examined further by comparing it with valid vote calculation result documents (Form Model C TPS Results, Form Model C Copy of TPS Results, Form Model D Sub-district Results, and Form Model D Regency Results), then there is no error because the vote acquisition determined by the Respondent is in accordance with the recapitulation results at each level.

In addition, the Petitioner's application is unclear because the petitioner's petitum contains fatal errors. In the Petitioner's Application Improvement dated March 26, 2024, at 12:59 WIB which was registered at the Constitutional Court Registry, the Petitioner submitted a petitum requesting that the Court decide the Petitioner's vote acquisition to be 24,413 votes and the Relevant Party's vote acquisition to be 24,362 votes, as stated on page 3 of the Petition.

The petitum contains fundamental and fatal errors because the Petitioner's petitum does not make sense when compared to the Petitioner's and the Relevant Party's vote acquisition that has been determined by the Respondent. If the Petitioner's petitum is granted by determining the Petitioner's and the Relevant Party's vote acquisition as requested by the Petitioner in the petitum, then there is a difference of 1,115 valid votes that are lost. Meanwhile, in its petitum, the Petitioner does not explain where the 1,115 valid votes that are lost went.

“The Petitioner's petitum contains a fatal error because it does not make sense when compared to the vote acquisition,” said M. Zainul Arifin as the legal counsel for the Relevant Party, the United Development Party.

Vague Application

The Aceh Party, which is also a Relevant Party in this case, explained that the petitioner's application is unclear because it cannot explain where the TPS location is that is the problem/difference in this application. In the subject matter of the application, according to the Aceh Party, the correct valid vote acquisition of the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the Aceh Party for filling the membership of the DPRK of the Pidie Jaya Regency 1 Electoral District is in accordance with the Respondent's Decree No. 360/2024.

“The petitioner's application is unclear or obscuur libel,” said Pebri Kurniawan as the legal counsel for the Relevant Party, the Aceh Party.