Banjarbaru Pilkada Dispute at MK Enters Further Evidence, Chances of Re-election Increase?

JAKARTA, KOMPAS – The dispute over the Regional Head Election or Pilkada in Banjarbaru City, South Kalimantan, has become one of the election result disputes that has progressed to the next stage, namely the evidence phase.

Each party involved in the matter, including the dispute applicant, the Banjarbaru City Election Commission as the respondent, and the related party (the winner), was given the opportunity to present four witnesses and experts to strengthen their arguments.

In addition to the Banjarbaru Regional Head Election, only five dispute cases were decided to proceed to the next stage of hearings out of 58 cases whose decisions were read in the first session of the decision/settlement reading hearing on Tuesday (4/2/2025). These five cases include the Regional Head Election disputes in Tasikmalaya Regency (West Java), Magetan Regency (East Java), Pesawaran Regency (Lampung), Mimika City (Central Papua), and East Aceh Regency (Aceh).

"Of the 58 cases called today, 52 cases have just been pronounced, the other six cases that were not pronounced are cases that will proceed to the next stage of evidence. These will continue to the next examination hearing with the provision of hearing witness or expert testimony and additional evidence," said Deputy Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court Saldi Isra, during the first session of the verdict reading, Tuesday morning until noon, February 4, 2025.

Saldi stated that for cases that proceed to the advanced examination stage, the parties are requested to submit a list of witness identities and the main points of the testimony that will be presented.

Likewise, with the experts to be presented, the parties are asked to submit the curriculum vitaeof the experts proposed along with the expert testimony to be presented. These requirements must be submitted one day before the further evidentiary hearing is held.

"The court will notify the schedule for the proof hearing through a letter after this, and we have scheduled the continuation of the proof hearing from February 7 to February 17, 2025. So, between those dates, there will be an official letter from the court," said Saldi.

Returning to the issue of the Banjarbaru Regional Election dispute, the Constitutional Court received four dispute petitions. These four cases were registered with the numbers 05/PHPU.WAKO-XXIII/2024, followed by numbers 06, 07, and 09. For case number 05, the Constitutional Court declared that the case would proceed to the next stage of the hearing. The case was filed by the election observer of Banjarbaru City, represented by legal counsel, Denny Indrayana.

Meanwhile, case 06, which was filed by two voters in Banjarbaru City, namely Udiansyah and Abdul Karim, failed because the Constitutional Court considered that the applicant did not have legal standing.

Constitutional judge Arief Hidayat, while reading the considerations, stated that the two individuals questioned the results of the Banjarbaru City Regional Election in their capacity as individual citizens with voting rights. Thus, this qualification does not fall under "election participants" or "election observers" as regulated in Article 157 paragraph (4) of Law 10/2026 and Article 4 paragraph (1) of Constitutional Court Regulation Number 3 of 2024.

"In this regard, although the applicants requested that the Court set aside or postpone the validity of the formal requirements regarding the applicant's legal standing as an individual citizen, however, as the Court has considered above, the requirements for legal standing are related to the applicant's qualifications in the election results dispute application, and there are not enough strong and convincing reasons for the Court to set aside these requirements," said Arief.

A similar fate was experienced by Hamdan Eko Benyamine, Hudan Nur, Zepi Al Ayubi, and Sani Firly, who are residents of Banjarbaru City as the applicants for the dispute in case 07. They are members of the Mingguraya Long Bench Academy Institute. The Constitutional Court considered that the applicants were not included as voter observers so they did not have the legal standing to file a petition.

For your information, the Banjarbaru Pilkada has attracted the attention of many parties because the number of invalid votes dominates. The number of invalid votes far exceeds the number of valid votes achieved by the sole candidate pair, Erna Lisa Halaby and Wartono, who were supported by 13 political parties, namely PKB, Gerindra, PDI Perjuangan, Golkar, Nasdem, Gelora Party, PKS, Garuda Party, PAN, PBB, Demokrat Party, PSI, and Perindo Party.

The Lisa-Wartono pair became the sole candidate in the Banjarbaru Pilkada after the Banjarbaru City KPU canceled the candidacy of the pair Muhammad Aditya Mufti Ariffin and Said Abdullah. Although there was only one candidate, the election was not held with a single candidate mechanism. The local election organizers treated the voting situation there as if there were still two candidate pairs.

As a result, a number of parties urged that the Banjarbaru Pilkada be repeated because it was not implemented according to applicable regulations or was unconstitutional.

The local KPU at that time argued that the recommendation to disqualify the Aditya-Said pair was in early November or less than 30 days before the vote, November 27, 2024. Therefore, the space for the reprinting of ballot papers was no longer possible. So, on the ballot paper during the election, there was still a picture of Aditya-Said, and not an empty column as it should have been when there was only a single candidate. Then during the election, when the picture of Aditya-Said was marked, it was considered an invalid vote.

Among the 52 cases read out in the first session, the Constitutional Court granted the request to withdraw nine cases.

Among them, the withdrawal of the application submitted by the gubernatorial and deputy gubernatorial candidate pair of North Sulawesi, Elly Engelbert Lasut and Hanny Joost Pajouw, the gubernatorial and deputy gubernatorial candidate pair of Central Java Andika Perkasa and Hendrar Prihadi, and the National Coordinator of the Indonesian Voters Association (PPI) Saparudin in the Semarang City and Probolinggo City Pilkada dispute.

In addition, the Constitutional Court granted the withdrawal submitted by the candidate pair for Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Sawahlunto Deri Asta and Desni Seswinari, the candidate pair for Regent and Deputy Regent of Pangandaran Ujang Endin Indrawan and Dadang Solihat, the candidate pair for Regent-Deputy Regent of Yapen Islands Welliam R Manderi and Yohanes G Raubaba, and the candidate pair for Regent-Deputy Regent of Klaten W Herry Wibowo and Wahyu Adhi Dermawan.

"The court has concluded that the request to withdraw the case is legally justified and the applicants cannot re-submit the a quo request," said Chief Justice Suhartoyo, who led the trial.