The Constitutional Court finally summed up the trial of disputes related to the April 9 legislative elections Tuesday, which will allow the General Elections Commission (KPU) to complete the allocation of seats at the House of Representatives.
The court issued the verdicts on election disputes in Pariaman, Musi Rawas, Rokan Hulu, Tulangbawang, South Nias, Batam and Minahasa regencies.
"With the ruling today, *legislative* election disputes filed to the Constitutional Court have been settled," Constitutional Court chief Mahfud MD said after the court session, which was attended by several members of the polling body and legislative candidates involved in the disputes. He said the verdicts were based on vote recounts in almost all the above regencies.
The dispute was still to be resolved in Yahukimo, Papua, he said, as the local polling body was still recounting the votes as was ordered by the court.
"The Yahukimo dispute is related only to the Regional Representative Council *DPD*, whereas we wanted to help the KPU make its final decision. Therefore we decided to postpone the ruling of Yahukimo until it finishes the vote recount," said Mahfud.
He said that any conflicting sides finding any violations in the implementation of the court's verdict could file complaints to the district court.
"Constitutional Court officials can provide data or testimonies on the case should it be needed," he said.
He said the court's decision was fair and transparent because all disputes were solved by conducting a prior recount and all decisions were made in sessions attended by related parties.
As the election disputes have been settled, Mahfud said he expected the KPU would complete their work to allocate all contested seats at the House, the DPD, and provincial, regency and municipal legislatures, so that winning candidates could be sworn in after their announcement.
New legislators at the House are scheduled to take their oath and start their new term on Oct. 1.
Separately KPU member, Andi Nurpati, who received the court's verdicts said the polling body accepted the court's ruling and would conduct a plenary meeting on Wednesday to discuss it.
"Tomorrow we will hold a plenary meeting to evaluate whether the court's ruling will change the tallies of political parties, but firstly we will recapitulate the votes to determine the legislative candidates that won a seat at the House," she said.
She expected the recapitulation could be accomplished in one day so the KPU could announce the seat allocation before the inauguration on Oct. 1.
She said the KPU would discuss the vote recounting of Yahukimo after it had finished its recounting process.
Conflicting interpretations of the election law by the KPU, Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court has led to several delays in the release of the official results from the legislative elections.The Supreme Court ruled on June 18 that the second phase of vote counting by the KPU was incorrect.
The KPU has been under fire for several delays in the announcement of the seat allocation, especially at the House and the DPD.
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