The General Elections Commission (KPU) has opted to ignore for now the Supreme Court's ruling on the second phase of vote counting for the legislative elections, and instead focus on the legal challenges over its handling of the presidential poll, an official said Tuesday.
Andi Nurpati, the KPU member in charge of vote counting, said the commission remained concerned about the court's ruling, but added it would not yet decide on how to implement the ruling in light of the recent challenge mounted by losing presidential candidates against the election results.
"The KPU has yet to schedule a meeting to implement the ruling, because right now we're facing this legal challenge over the results of the presidential election," Andi said at the KPU office in Central Jakarta.
"We'll basically prioritize our preparation to face the challenge at the Constitutional Court. Then we'll discuss the implementation of the Supreme Court's ruling."
Last Thursday, the Supreme Court announced it had annulled the KPU's legislative elections results for the second phase of ballot counting.
Under the now annulled KPU regulation, the second phase of calculation involved the distribution of House of Representatives and regional council seats to parties, in which parties who had gained seats during the first phase of vote counting could not use the votes they had used in that first phase.
The Supreme Court ruling stipulates the votes used by winning parties in the first phase must be used again in the second phase, thus costing smaller parties with fewer votes legislative seats, after the KPU had already finished distributing seats to representatives of these minor parties.
Sixty-six House seats will shift from smaller to larger parties, under the court ruling, with a further 1,300 regional council seats to change hands as well.
Adding to the KPU's troubles, presidential candidates Jusuf Kalla and Megawati Soekarnoputri submitted Monday a legal challenge to the Constitutional Court against the KPU's results from the presidential election.
Both campaign teams called the election unfair and illegal, claiming widespread electoral violations, including irregularities in the electoral roll and alleged balloting before voting day.
Andi, speaking after Megawati's campaign team had filed their suit, said the KPU's legal affairs bureau was completing the paperwork to use as evidence in response to the challenges.
"Of course we kept copies of everything, including memos distributed to and from KPUDs *regional elections commissions*," she said.
As for the Supreme Court's ruling, Andi said the KPU planned to debate the court's authority when it came to decisions affecting election results, pointing out the election law states any legal challenge to election results must be filed with the Constitutional Court.
"The Supreme Court's ruling relates to a specific KPU regulation," Andi said.
"That the change in regulation affected seat distribution is something the KPU still needs to study, as that relates to the elections results," she said.
She added the KPU was also questioning the Supreme Court's decision to make the announcement on July 23, despite making the ruling on July 18.
