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Parties gear up for electoral disputes
Political parties are expected to file electoral disputes with the Constitutional Court when the General Elections Commission (KPU) finishes its official vote count by May 9
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olitical parties are expected to file electoral disputes with the Constitutional Court when the General Elections Commission (KPU) finishes its official vote count by May 9.
Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) liaison to the KPU Sudyatmiko Aribowo said on Tuesday that his team had found irregularities in the vote-counting in some electoral districts.
'We are preparing [to file electoral disputes] regarding some regions with the court to uphold people's constitutional rights,' he told reporters at KPU headquarters in Central Jakarta. 'There are some [processes] that we don't feel are working. Therefore, it is enough reason for the PDI-P to prepare electoral disputes.'
Sudyatmiko said that the PDI-P had lined up 70 lawyers to handle its electoral disputes.
'Because the process of reviewing an electoral dispute can take 14 days, there needs to be more human resources at the court sessions at the Constitutional Court,' he said.
PDI-P has also started examining the vote recapitulation (C1) forms that it received to see if they matched with the ones used in the national vote count, Sudyatmiko said.
During its investigation into the forms, PDI-P officials found irregularities and violations.
'The worst offenses involve vote-buying, not only in polling stations, but also at the village, subdistrict and district levels,' Sudyatmiko said. 'There are also cases of vote inflation and depreciation, or vote
swapping.'
The PDI-P found that vote swapping cases were especially rampant among the party's legislative candidates.
'Almost all reports that we have received are internal in nature, either cases of robbing the party's votes or swapping one candidate's votes for another candidate's. And it turns out that such cases happen in all parties,' said Sudyatmiko.
Meanwhile, the NasDem Party and the Gerindra Party revealed they had also documented similar cases of vote swapping.
The two parties said they preferred to settle the cases internally.
NasDem election team head Ferry Mursyidan Baldan said the party had its own mechanism to deal with legislative candidates who tried to snatch votes illegally.
'We will annul their victory,' he told The Jakarta Post. 'We chose to settle it internally because it doesn't affect other political parties.'
Gerindra deputy secretary-general Abdul Harris Bobihoe, meanwhile, said that the party would defer to its ethics council to handle vote swapping cases.
Meanwhile, to argue electoral dispute cases at the Constitutional Court, the NasDem has formed a team of 50 lawyers led by prominent attorney OC Kaligis and former legislative candidate Taufik Basari.
