JAKARTA, LEGAL LITERACY – The Constitutional Court (MK) held a follow-up hearing with the agenda of listening to the Respondent's answers and the testimony of the Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) for the General Election Results Dispute (PHPU) case for prospective members of the Regional People's Representative Council (DPRD) of Intan Jaya Regency, Intan Jaya Electoral District (Dapil) 3, submitted by Oktovianus Wandikmbo from the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), serial number 1.

The trial with case number 68-02-02-36/PHPU.DPR-DPRD-XXII/2024 was held in Panel 3 Hearing Room on Monday (06/05/2024) morning with the Panel of Constitutional Justices 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 had previously argued that there had been fraud in the acquisition of votes. According to the Petitioner, represented by his attorney, Salhan Adiputra Alboneh, at the preliminary hearing previously on Monday (29/4/2024), argued that there had been a loss of the petitioner's votes from four villages totaling 4,772 votes. The Petitioner suspects that the lost votes were robbed and/or eliminated by members of the District Election Committee (PPD) and the Voting Committee (PPS), which were then transferred to other candidates.

According to the Petitioner in his petition, the votes that should have been obtained were 5,049, while the respondent's version (General Election Commission) recorded only 277 votes for the petitioner. On the other hand, the votes obtained by the Caleg from the Gerindra Party serial number 2, Salmon Nagapa, according to the petitioner's claim, should only be 259 from the recorded 5,031. In addition to the difference in votes, the Petitioner, represented by his attorney, revealed that there was a recommendation from the Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) of Intan Jaya Regency Number: 083/Rekom.01.0/K.PT/08/III/2024 dated, March 05, 2024 concerning the Recommendation for the Cancellation of the Plenary Vote Count Recapitulation Results of Intan Jaya Regency. However, the recommendation was not followed up by the Election Organizer.

KPU Rejects All Petitioner's Arguments, Proves the Vote Recapitulation is Valid and Denies Fraud

In its response, the KPU stated that the Petitioner did not have legal standing because it was not based on written approval by the General Chairperson and Secretary General of the Gerindra Party, the recommendation was only given by the Gerindra DPC Management. Furthermore, according to the Respondent, the Petitioner's petition was also unclear or vague because it contained illogical things such as arguing that there was a delay in logistics delivery, but on the other hand concluding that they had votes in the Agisiga District.

“The Petitioner does not have legal standing because it is not based on recommendations from the general chairman and secretary general of the party, but only based on recommendations from the DPC. In our opinion, the DPC recommendation cannot be used. In addition, the petitioner's petition is also vague because it explains that there was a delay in logistics delivery, but on the other hand concludes that they obtained votes in the Agisiga District,” said the KPU's Legal Counsel.

The KPU also rejected all of the Petitioner's arguments because the petitioner's arguments were entirely wrong. According to the KPU as the Respondent, based on the valid vote recapitulation made by the Petitioner, the number of valid votes from Tambage, Nabia, Danggoa, Kombogosiga, and Soali Villages was 5,049 votes, clearly in this case there was a difference of 260 votes. This means that the petition made by the Petitioner is not based on actual evidence and facts, but is only made on the basis of opinions on the recapitulation of results made by the Petitioner himself. In fact, the Petitioner only got 277 votes, namely only at TPS 3 Tambage Village. The Petitioner did not get votes at other TPS or villages.

The Respondent also denied the Petitioner's argument regarding fraud or transfer of votes at the district level by the PPD. In fact, there was a recapitulation of vote acquisition carried out by the PPD, as evidenced by the D Hasil documents for the Agisiga and Biandoga District Subdistricts. Based on this evidence, the acquisition of votes for Salmon Nagapa, a candidate for Member of the DPRD of Intan Jaya Regency from the Gerindra Party serial number 2, did not come from the Agisiga District, but from the Biandoga District. In addition, regarding the recommendation of the Intan Jaya Regency Bawaslu Number: 083/Rekom.01.0/K.PT/081111/2024, this letter has been revoked by Bawaslu with Number 085/Rekom.01.01/K-PT/081111/2024 after the Respondent provided clarification which caused Bawaslu to revoke the letter.

Intan Jaya Bawaslu Cancels Recommendation to Cancel Plenary Vote Results

Bawaslu, in its statement, also explained that the Intan Jaya Regency Bawaslu issued a recommendation to the Intan Jaya Regency KPU through Letter Number: 083/Rekom.01.01/K.PT/081111/2024 regarding the Recommendation for the Cancellation of the Plenary Vote Results of Intan Jaya Regency dated March 4, 2024. According to the Intan Jaya Regency Bawaslu, because the recommendation had been followed up by issuing News Item Number: 230/PL.01.8-BA/9407/2024 concerning the Receipt of the Recapitulation Results of the Vote Acquisition Calculation of the Model C-Results Form dated March 1, 2024 by the Intan Jaya Regency KPU, which in essence stated that the Model C-Results form and copies were not received when the District Election Committee submitted the recapitulation of the vote count results, therefore, the Intan Jaya Regency Bawaslu issued a cancellation of the recommendation based on Recommendation Letter Number: 085/Rekom.01.01/K.PT/081111/2024.

In response to the answers that have been explained, the Respondent asked the Court to decide to reject all of the petitioner's requests and declare the Decree of the General Election Commission Number 360 of 2024 correct.