Court overturns PKS Depok win
Yuli Tri Suwarni and Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post/Bandung/Jakarta
The West Java High Court declared Golkar candidate Badrul Kamal the winner of the June 26 election in Depok on Thursday, dealing a severe blow to the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), whose candidate had earlier been declared the winner by the Depok General Elections Commission on July 6.
While the judges said the court's verdict was binding and conclusive, experts said that the PKS's Nur Mahmudi Ismail could appeal the verdict to the Supreme Court.
"The decision doesn't automatically catapult Badrul into the mayoral post. It depends on Nur Mahmudi. If he files an appeal, Badrul's inauguration will have to wait for a decision from the Supreme Court," administrative law expert Harun Alrasyid of the University of Indonesia told The Jakarta Post.
Harun's opinion was supported by Sri Sumantri, an administrative law expert from Padjajaran University.
The judges said on Thursday that vote rigging and manipulation had been rampant during the June 26 election, which led to the undercounting of Badrul's vote and the overcounting of Nur Mahmudi's vote.
The Depok KPUD announced on July 6 that Nur Mahmudi and his running mate Yuyun Wirasaputra had won the election with a total vote of 232,610, compared to Badrul and Syihabudin Ahmad's 206,781 votes. Badrul filed his complaint with the West Java High Court on July 12.
Presiding judge Nana Juwana said that due to the vote rigging, Badrul, who is the in-law of West Java Governor Danny Setiawan, lost a total of 62,772 votes, while Nur Mahmudi gained an additional 27,782 votes.
Based on the violations and vote manipulation, the court decided that Badrul should have received 269,551 votes, while Nur Mahmudi should have got only 204,828.
The court heard evidence from 11 witnesses called by Badrul and one witness from the KPUD. No witnesses from the PKS were called to testify.
"Some witnesses testified that many Depok residents couldn't get voter cards, and hence couldn't exercise their right to vote while others said that people living outside Depok had cast votes in the election," Nana said.
Nana said that the judges also agreed that the KPUD had not come up with sufficient grounds to support its decision to declare Nur Mahmudi the winner of the election.
PKS West Java branch chairman Yudi Widiana Adia said after the hearing that the court had been unfair as the judges had not heard any evidence from witnesses proposed by Nur Mahmudi.
"Many witnesses perjured themselves. In fact, a member of the Elections Monitoring Committee (Panwas) gave false testimony to the effect that PKS members had handed out free VCDs and money," he said.
Yudi said that they would file an appeal to the Supreme Court immediately.
Sri Sumantri said the minister of home affairs had a role to play in the case as he was the one who would officially inaugurate the winning candidate.
Article 106 of Law No. 32/2004 on local elections stipulates that the Supreme Court has the final say in local election disputes, while article 109 of the same law says that winning candidates are inaugurated by the minister of home affairs.
Several local election disputes have been dealt with by the Supreme Court over the last week.