Chaotic Banjarbaru Regional Head Election Results, Constitutional Court Judge Questions The Basic Law On Voting

JAKARTA - Constitutional Court Judge Enny Nurbaningsih questioned the legal basis for the 2024 Banjarbaru City Pilkada voting, because in the ballot there were photos of two pairs of candidates for mayor and deputy mayor, but one pair of candidates had been disqualified.

Voters who vote for the disqualified candidate pair are categorized as invalid votes. However, the voting was not carried out using the empty box method as regulated in Article 54C of Law Number 10 of 2016 concerning the Election of Governors, Regents, and Mayors (UU Pilkada).

"If the ballot is declared invalid, there are already rules. What then is the legal basis that can be used and it has a strong legitimacy basis, if then the candidate pair is not Article 54C basically, as if normal, but then it is declared invalid?" asked Enny in the follow-up trial of the Banjarbaru City Pilkada dispute in the Constitutional Court, Jakarta, reported by ANTARA, Monday, January 20.

Answering Enny's question, Chairman of the Banjarbaru KPU, Dahtiar, said that his party adhered to KPU Decree Number 1774 of 2024 concerning Technical Guidelines for the Implementation of Voting and Counting in the Pilkada. The decision was made on November 23, 2024.

"Our decision is 1774 and our position is implementer, implementer," said Dahtiar, who was immediately cut by Enny.

"Well, then thank you," said Enny.

The Banjarbaru City Pilkada was initially attended by two candidate pairs, namely candidate pair number 1 Erna Lisa Halaby and Wartono as well as candidate pair number 2 Aditya Mufti Ariffin and Said Abdullah.

The Aditya-Said pair was later disqualified based on the Banjarbaru City KPU Decree Number 124 of 2024 dated October 31, 2024. The disqualification was based on the recommendation of the South Kalimantan Provincial Bawaslu which stated that the candidate pair had committed administrative violations.

Despite disqualifying one of the two pairs of candidates, the Banjarbaru City KPU did not implement the candidate pair system against the empty box. Aditya-Said's photo remains in the ballot side by side with Erna-Wartono's photo.

The vote of voters who voted for Aditya-Said was declared invalid because the pair had been disqualified previously. The vote count determined by the Banjarbaru City KPU, namely Erna Lisa Halaby-Wartono, received 36,135 votes and invalid votes reached 78,736 votes. Erna-Wartono came out victorious.

Furthermore, Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat highlighted the high number of invalid votes. According to him, the illegal votes that reached could be assumed as a form of protest against Erna-Wartono's disapproval.

However, the attorney for the Banjarbaru City KPU, Muh. Salman Darwis said Arief's assumption was wrong. "It cannot be concluded simply so, Your Majesty, because there are variables," he said.

Salman explained that a total of 78,736 invalid votes could not be concluded to belong to Aditya-Said, the disqualified pair. This is because the composition of the votes acquired is not valid just because the voters voted for Aditya-Said's photo, but also because the ballot was crossed out, torn, voting outside the column, or voting for the two candidate pairs.

In addition, Arief said the voting method which stated that choosing Aditya-Said was invalid, because it had been disqualified, placed voters as if they had no other choice but to choose Erna-Wartono. This condition, said Arief, becomes a legal issue.

"If you choose a partner who has been disqualified, it means that your voice is not valid. If you want your voice to be valid, yes, you just have to choose one, the Related Party (Erna-Wartono). If you don't want to choose the relevant party, it means you don't have to choose anyone," he said.

The KPU's attorney denied this. He said that his party only provided the procedures according to the 1774 decision issued by the KPU in less than a week before the voting day.

"Because we only provide the procedure, as decided by 1774," said Salman.

"Well, that's what the 1774 decision was wrong," said Arief.

"We are not in the process of assessing that," said Salman.

"That's why later those who judge, we, the Court," said Arief.

The results of the 2024 Banjarbaru City Election dispute were sued by four parties, among others, submitted by Muhamad Arifin, election monitoring of the South Kalimantan Nusantara Vision Study Institute (case Number 05/PHPU.WAKO-XXIII/2025), as well as two voters in the Banjarbaru City Pilkada, namely Udiansyah and Abd. Karim (kara Number 06/PHPU.WAKO-XXIII/2025).

In addition, four residents of Banjarbaru City, Hamdan Eko Benjamine, Hudan Nur, Zepi Al Ayudi, and Sani Firly who are members of the Bangku Panjang Mingurraya Academy Institute (kara Number 07/PHPU.WAKO-XXIII/2025), and Candidate Deputy Mayor of Banjarbaru Number 2 Said Abdullah (case Number 09/PHPU.WAKO-XXIII/2025).

The four cases were tried on panel 3 led by Arief Hidayat accompanied by Enny Nurbaningsih and Anwar Usman.