Constitutional Court orders vote rerun in Nias and Yahukimo

The Jakarta Post ,  JAKARTA   |  Wed, 06/10/2009 1:01 PM  |  Presidential Election

The Constitutional Court has annulled the recent legislative election results in South Nias regency, North Sumatra, and Yahukimo regency in Papua, and ordered a vote rerun in both regencies.

"The Court ordered the General Elections Commission schedule a vote rerun in South Nias 90 days at the latest from the reading of this verdict. The Court also ordered the commission annul the previously announced legislative election results in the concerned regency," Constitutional Court chief Moh. Mahfud MD said on Tuesday.

The plaintiffs for the South Nias election result dispute case are the Indonesian Democratic Care Party (PKDI), the Indonesian Workers and Employers Party (PPPI), the New Indonesia Party of Struggle (PPIB), the Republika Nusantara Party (RepublikaN), the People's Conscience Party (Hanura) and the Democratic Party (PD).

The vote rerun will affect the House of Representatives, the Provincial Consultative Council, and the Regency Consultative Council election results.

"The Court can't just turn a blind eye to an election that has been tainted with systemic and massive violations. Turning our back would be a sign of a weak country that is unable to uphold democracy," Mahfud said.

Based on evidence and testimonies, the court ruled that fraud had been committed and no plenary session had been held to verify the election results among the polling station working committees and the district election commissions.

According to Sanudin Zebua, the South Nias police chief, votes contained in 21 ballot boxes had not been counted at the provincial level.

The General Elections Commission announced the national legislative election results on May 9, but the results were incomplete as the commission had failed to finish counting votes in five districts in South Nias regency, North Sumatra.

The Court also ordered a vote rerun for the Regional Representative Council (DPD) election in 37 districts of the Yahukimo regency within 90 days, and in 14 other districts within 60 days at the latest from the verdict's reading.

"The court ordered vote reruns in the 37 districts because there was no DPD election in those areas. The court ordered recounts in the 14 districts because there were contradictory DPD election results in those areas," Justice Maria Farida Indrati said.

The Court also stated that, in general, voting in Yahukimo was not carried out according to the right procedures. The process was carried out collectively based on the "residents' agreement".

"The Court approves the collective way of voting in Yahukimo as it is an accepted form of voting there. Voting in another way would have created conflicts among people there," Justice Maria said.

The General Elections Commission must obey the Court's decision, which is final and binding.

Abdul Hafiz Anshary, the commission's chairman, said his commission would obey and respect the court's decision.

"We will hold a plenary session for each case to discuss the preparations needed to carry out the court's decision."

"The court's verdict will change the national legislative election result, but will have no effect on the presidential election process."

He said the commission would evaluate the regional commission's members to determine the extent of their mistakes before deciding on any punishment.

"The plenary session will also decide whether we will use the same regional election commission members for the vote rerun and the presidential election or not," he said.

The court's decision to order vote reruns in these two cases is the first of its kind. The court has only finished reviewing nine of over 500 cases filed by disappointed parties.

Legal experts are concerned that with such a high number of pending cases, further court decisions will significantly affect the results of the recent legislative elections, and could affect the upcoming presidential election, with many people questioning the validity of the results in both elections. (fmb)

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