Amien's brother loses bid for DPD seat

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta

As presidential candidate Amien Rais started his campaign on Tuesday, his brother, Dahlan, was removed from his projected seat on the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) in Central Java.

The Constitutional Court ruled that Dahlan's opponent, cleric Achmad Chalwani, deserved a seat on the council in the dispute. According to the panel of nine judges, Chalwani, who ranked fifth in the DPD ballot count, should have been fourth. Dahlan, who ranked fourth in the count, should have been fifth.

Only four DPD members are selected from each of the country's 32 provinces. The total 128 DPD candidates who won the April 5 legislative election will constitute the People's Consultative Assembly, along with 550 other members from the House of Representatives.

Dahlan's case was the first of its kind to be dealt with by the Court.

Both Dahlan, a lecturer at a state university in Surakarta, and Chalwani, head of an Islamic boarding school in Purworejo, filed objections with the court over the ballot count by the Central Java KPUD.

"This ruling is final and binding. We ordered the KPUD to follow the ruling," Constitutional Court President Jimly Asshidiqie told the hearing on Tuesday evening.

Chalwani, who attended the hearing, refused to comment on the ruling. Lawyer Achmad Choidin, who represented Dahlan, said that his client would accept and respect the ruling, although he considered that the court had failed to review evidence involving a reduction of votes for his client in Wonosobo.

We have to accept the ruling because it is final, he said after the hearing.

In another case, the court ordered that Ruslan Wijaya, who ranked fourth for the DPD in South Sumatra, remain in his seat because the court considered that the KPUD in South Sumatra had failed to count his votes correctly. Ruslan should have won 146,318 votes as opposed to a projected 143,451.