Freedom Bull Nationalist Party stripped of single seat in House

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta

The Constitutional Court denied the Freedom Bull Nationalist Party (PNBK) a seat on Wednesday at the House of Representatives.

In their verdict, all nine justices said the local General Elections Commission (KPU) had announced an inaccurate number of votes for PNBK by mistakenly assigning a total of 13,639 votes from 11 other parties from the Sintang and Melawi regencies to PNBK.

The court said the PNBK had to relinquish its sole House seat to rival the Reform Star Party (PBR).

"We annul the KPU decree on the announcement of the result of the legislative election and order the KPU to revise it," Constitutional Court chief Jimly Asshidiqie told the court.

The PNBK now joins the Social Democratic Labor Party (PBSD), the Patriot Party, the Marhaenisme Indonesian National Party (PNI Marhaenisme), the Indonesian Nahdlatul Community Party (PPNUI) and Indonesian Unity Party (PSI) as election contenders that failed to gain representation in the House.

According to the law on the Constitutional Court, its verdict cannot be challenged.

According to the KPU's tally, PNBK secured 72,639 votes while PBR 68,943. However, based on evidence it obtained from the PBR, the court said the PNBK actually garnered only 59,087 votes.

PNBK also submitted evidence to support its claim, but the court said it was not solid enough.

"The copies of the documents the PNBK presented were not signed by the designated officials, while some of them were different from the original forms (from the KPU)," Jimly said.

PBNK members could not be reached for comment.

PBR now has a total of 12 seats in the House.

M. Mahendradatta, a lawyer representing PBR, accepted the verdict, but threatened to sue the KPU for the trouble it had caused the party that resulted in material and nonmaterial losses.

"But we demand the KPU give financial assistance to the PBR to pay the lawyers. They disburse money to pay lawyers to represent themselves, why don't they give political parties the same treatment?" he told reporters.

During the hearing, the Constitutional Court also handed three seats in the regental legislature to PBR in Deli Serdang, Ketapang and Medan.

Later in the day, representatives of the Democratic Party visited the Court to express their disappointment with a verdict that annulled a seat in the regental legislature it won in Batam.

"We oppose the verdict and will submit a letter to the KPU asking it not to execute the verdict," said Andika, the party's lawyer.

KPU has promised to execute the verdict soon as it is obliged to finalize the legislative election results later in June.