Witness Reveals High School Diploma Exemption is New for 2024 Election
I Gusti Putu Artha, a former Commissioner of the Indonesian General Elections Commission (KPU) for the 2007-2012 period, revealed that Article 18, paragraph 3 of KPU Regulation Number 19 of 2023 is a new addition specifically for the 2024 Presidential Election.
The article in question states: The proof of graduation as referred to in paragraph (1) letter m is exempted for prospective President or Vice President candidates who do not possess high school graduation proof from foreign schools abroad but possess proof of university graduation.
Putu provided this testimony as a witness for the petitioners in Case Number: 0_1/PHPU.PRES-XXIV/2026 regarding the Dispute of the 2024 Presidential and Vice Presidential Election Results during a hearing at the Constitutional Court on Wednesday night.
“In presidential elections from 2004 to 2019, this did not exist. Therefore, this exemption clause only appeared in the 2024 Presidential Election. That is my knowledge on the matter,” Putu told the Constitutional Judges.
According to Putu, similar exemption clauses were also absent in legislative elections from 2004 to 2024, as well as in elections for the Regional Representative Council (DPD RI) and Provincial/Regency/City Councils during the same period. He added that in regional elections he experienced in 2008, 2010, 2015, and 2020, such an exemption clause did not exist.
He further recounted his experience in the 2009 election, where he disqualified a legislative candidate who was the child of a high-ranking official due to problematic diploma credentials. “I happened to have the experience in 2009 of disqualifying an important legislative candidate, the child of Indonesia’s number one official, who could not be nominated for the DPR because, during my field verification, I attempted to remain consistent with KPU regulations regarding candidate requirement verification,” Putu said.
Regarding the verification of candidate requirements, he noted that there are at least two essential elements: providing documents and ensuring the authenticity of each document. “What I did was ensure that the documents were truly authentic. To verify this, we had to visit the institution that issued the document, then create an Official Report (Berpart of Minutes) stating that the document was indeed issued by that institution with that specific content, before we could proceed.”
“In the context of the 2009 election, I found a high school diploma that I personally discovered was problematic. When I visited a school in the Kuningan area with the Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) at that time, it turned out the diploma’s registration number belonged to someone else. The individual in question had only reached the second year of high school,” he continued.
The requirements for Gibran Rakabuming Raka’s nomination as Vice President in the 2024 Presidential Election are currently being challenged in the Constitutional Court. The petitioners include the Independent Committee for Election Monitoring (KIPP), the Ummat Party, former Deputy Minister of Law and Human Rights Denny Indrayana, and several citizens.
In their petition, the applicants request the Court to declare that the educational requirements stipulated in Article 169 letter r of the Election Law are imperative and must be legally fulfilled at the time of registration and the determination of presidential and vice-presidential pairs. They are also seeking the disqualification of Gibran Rakabuming Raka for failing to meet these educational requirements, arguing his nomination was legally flawed from the start and requesting the annulment of his inauguration.