The Winner Of The Bandar Lampung Regional Election, Eva-Deddy, Is Disqualified, Yusril: Covid-19 Aid Funds Have Been Misused

Yusril Ihza Mahendra (ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Yusril Ihza Mahendra, the head of the legal team for the candidate pair for Mayor of Bandar Lampung, Yusuf Kohar-Tulus Purnomol, stated that the misuse of COVID-19 assistance funds was one of the important points for the cancellation of candidate pair Eva Dwiana-Deddy Amarullah. Eva-Deddy was disqualified after winning the most votes in the Bandar Lampung Pilkada.

Yusril said the candidate pair for Mayor of Bandar Lampung, Eva Dwiana-Deddy Amarullah, had committed a structured, systematic and massive violation (TSM) by directing and misusing COVID-19 aid funds.

"The facts revealed at the Lampung Bawaslu trial are proven and irrefutable that the Mayor of Bandar Lampung and his staff have directed and misused COVID-19 assistance funds, thus benefiting candidate number 03 and harming other couples," he said as quoted by Antara, Tuesday, January 19. .

According to Yusril, the violation was the distribution of social assistance for COVID-19 in the form of 5 kg rice funded by the Bandar Lampung City Budget to all citizens equally.

This is of course very concerning, said Yusril, the government's official aid funded by the APBD was misused for personal gain.

"The assistance was carried on behalf of Mayor Herman HN (Eva Dwiana's husband) and also conveyed special messages to select candidate pair number 03 and this clearly harmed other potential pairs," he said.

Yusril said that in addition to the misappropriation of Covid-19 assistance funds, ASN was also deployed starting from the sub-district, village head, RT and Linmas in 11 sub-districts throughout Bandar Lampung, distributing money to PKK cadres ahead of election day.

"Ahead of election day, Rp200 thousand was distributed to 100 PKK cadres in each urban village, where Candidate for Mayor Number 03, Eva Dwiana is the PKK Chair of Bandar Lampung City," he said.

According to Yusril, the next non-neutral actions were ASN doubling as KPPS, dismissing RT and Linmas and terminating rice aid for residents who refused to vote for Candidate Candidate Number 03.

In fact, said Yusril, there was misuse of the APBD for free rapid test facilities for all witnesses for candidate pair number 03 but not for witnesses from other pairs of candidates.

"So, the verdict of the Lampung Province Bawaslu Examining Council Number 02 / Reg / L / TSM-PW / 08.00 / XII / 2020, which canceled Serial Number 03 Candidate Candidates is legally binding," he said again.

Because of that, said Yusril, the decision of the Lampung Province Bawaslu is based on witness testimony, letter evidence and expert testimony have been legally and convincingly proven to have violated the administration of the TSM election.

Quoting the testimony of an expert witness, namely the former Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court, Hamdan Zoelva, that no one should benefit from an offense committed by himself and no one should be harmed by a violation or irregularity committed by another person.

With the disqualification decision, candidate number 03 is no longer entitled to participate in the election stages.

The Bawaslu decision to disqualify candidate number 3 was issued January 6, 2021 and was followed up by the Bandar Lampung KPU by issuing a decision letter on January 8, 2021, which essentially canceled candidate pair number 03.

With this decision, candidate pairs 03 no longer have the right to take part in the pilkada stages. Responding to this decision, Paslon Eva Dwiana-Deddy Amarullah did not accept this and filed a lawsuit to the Supreme Court.