A pair of candidates who failed a verification process to run in September's Riau gubernatorial election have filed a legal complaint accusing the local chapter of the General Elections Commission (KPUD) of failing to abide by legal standards.
Sri Wahyuni and running mate Yusfar Salam said the poll body had conspired to prevent them from taking charge of the province.
"The KPUD's decision to eliminate our candidacy goes against the existing regulation. With the legal complaint, we want to show the public there is something wrong with the poll body's verification procedure," Sri said in Penkanbaru on Friday.
In the complaint filed to the Pekanbaru District Court, the pair demanded the KPUD suspend the election and that the verification process be repeated.
Sri said if the poll body had properly enacted the 2008 general election law, it would not have made the verification error.
She said verification had been conducted solely by the KPUD, contrary to the law, which states that local and village-level poll bodies must jointly process candidates.
"In fact, not all of the support letters have been verified and it (the verification process) was conducted randomly, possibly due to understaffing and an inadequate budget."
The KPUD said they had declined to verify the pair, as well as the candidacy of Sumardi Taher and Irianto Rap, because they had failed to obtain political support from all regions in the province as required by law.
However, Sri, also a lecturer of a post-graduate program at the Riau Islamic University in Pekanbaru, countered the argument, saying she and her running mate had previously handed in letters of support detailing the political support of 320,000 eligible voters representing all regencies and municipalities in the province.
The law requires independent candidates collect at least 230,000 votes to pass the verification process.
The Sumardi-Irianto pair meanwhile have filed a lawsuit to the State Administrative Law, saying the KPUD should publicly explain why their names were delisted when they had met all administrative and legal requirements, including the minimum political support.
"We are demanding the poll body suspend the election and that they get another chance to verify our candidacy in accordance with the law," Sumardi said.
He said he and his running mate had handed in more than 263 thousand letters of political support, all of which had already been verified by local election committees in villages in the region.
Makmur Hendrik, a member of the KPUD, denied the accusation, saying the poll body had no vested interests in the verification and that it would go ahead with the election in accordance with the timetable.
He also said the poll body had not conspired with other candidates nominated by political parties to delete names of the independent candidates, adding that the verification had been completed in accordance to the official procedure.
He said the two pairs of governor hopefuls had not sufficiently proven they had collected the minimum 230,000 political votes because the number of identity cards given had not matched the number of political votes, and some had expired.
"The law requires an eligible voter give only one political support card and a part of a copy of an identity card is no longer valid," he said, adding that the two pairs had also not met the registration deadline.
However, he said the KPUD had not involved subdistrict and village-level election committees in the verification because of time restrictions.
The poll body will, if asked, submit to the courts the expiring identity cards and records of deadline violations as evidence, he said.
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