Banjarbaru Regional Head Election Results Sued To Constitutional Court

JAKARTA - The results of the Banjarbaru City Regional Head Election (Pilkada), South Kalimantan in 2024 were sued by the Constitutional Court (MK) by two applicants, namely election monitors and voters representatives, because they were considered unconstitutional.

The two applications were officially registered by the Banjarbaru Haram Manyairah (Justar) Legal Team directly to the Constitutional Court at the I MK building, Jakarta, Wednesday, December 4.

"We registered two applications at once, one in the name of the monitoring registered with the KPU and the next is on behalf of the residents registered with their voting rights in Banjarbaru City," said Banjarbaru Legal Team Coordinator, Hanyar Muhamad Pazri, as reported by ANTARA.

Pazri explained that his party questioned the results of the Banjarbaru City Pilkada because its implementation was considered not to accommodate voting rights.

"Regarding the people's right to vote, among them, there is no right to vote in Banjarbaru because it is annulled by several implementations that are not in accordance with the constitution so that their voting rights are lost," he said.

In addition, the petitioners also questioned the voting which was not carried out using the empty box method. In fact, this year's Banjarbaru City Pilkada was only followed by one candidate pair, namely Erna Lisa Halaby-Wartono.

"The rules (regarding elections with the empty box method) are clear, the Constitutional Court's decision is clear, but it is not used as a basis for the organizers as a benchmark and test stone to hold elections in Banjarbaru City," he said.

Therefore, the petitioners asked the Constitutional Court for the KPU's decision letter (SK) regarding the results of the 2024 Banjarbaru City Pilkada votes to be canceled and the regional elections to be repeated from the initial stage.

"Requesting the KPU Decree in terms of vote acquisition must be canceled; and we propose later, at least, that the election be canceled, but repeated with the implementation taken over by the Indonesian KPU and a new registration opened," said Pazri.

The KPU of Banjarbaru City, South Kalimantan has named Erna Lisa Halaby-Wartono as the winner of the 2024 Banjarbaru City Pilkada. The Lisa-Wartono pair was determined to win 36,135 valid votes, while invalid votes reached 78,736 votes.

The pair of candidates for mayor and deputy mayor of Banjarbaru originally numbered two pairs, namely M. Aditya Mufti Ariffin-Said Abdullah as candidate pair number 2 and Lisa-Wartono as number 1.

The Aditya-Said pair was later disqualified on October 31, 2024, based on a recommendation letter from South Kalimantan Bawaslu which stated that the two had committed violations.

Aditya-Said's disqualification stems from a report submitted by his rival, Wartono, to Bawaslu. Wartono reported Aditya for alleged abuse of power, as regulated in Article 71 paragraph (3) of the Pilkada Law.

Although there is only one candidate pair left, the Banjarbaru City Pilkada is not carried out using the empty box method. The reason is, Aditya-Said's photo is still on the ballot, side by side with the photo of Lisa-Wartono.