Eri-Armudji Team Ready To Face Supreme Court Lawsuit At The Court: They Lose By A Margin Above The Provisions Of The Lawsuit

Eri Cahyadi (right) with Armudji (DOK. Instagram Eri Cahyadi)

SURABAYA - The candidate pair (candidate pair) number one Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Surabaya elected Eri Cahyadi-Armudji (Erji) is ready to face the Machfud-Mujiaman (MAJU) second candidate pair at the Constitutional Court (MK). The Eri-Armudji team has prepared an advocacy team against the lawsuit at the Constitutional Court.

"We have also registered the petition as a related party to the Constitutional Court last Tuesday," said Eri-Armudji's attorney, Arif Budi Santoso, confirmed Wednesday, January 2.

Arif doubts that the MAJU candidate's claim will be accepted by the Constitutional Court at the first stage of the trial hearing in early February.

Arif said that the Constitutional Court has consistently rejected every Pilkada lawsuit that exceeds the threshold for the difference in votes according to the Election Law. Where the maximum difference in votes in the Surabaya Pilkada is 0.5 percent.

"There were several precedents for the Constitutional Court to postpone the verdict, but that was due to very significant factors such as the vote counting in Papua until chaos burned and the PSU was not implemented," said Arif.

According to Arif, the MAJU legal team did not have legal standing in this lawsuit. Among them, the difference in the votes of the MAJU candidate is far from that of Erji.

"Because their side suffered defeat with a margin above the threshold according to the provisions in the law," he said.

Another factor, continued Arif, was that all the material for the lawsuit filed by Machfud-Mujiaman had been broken at Bawaslu which had stated that there were no structured, systematic and massive violations committed by the Eri-Armudji camp.

"Everything that was accused of Eri-Armudji was not proven. In fact, if you want to be honest, everyone should know who is doing money politics, dividing money to basic food, so don't be accused of cheating Eri-Armudji," said Arif.

The team of attorneys for Machfud Arifin and Mujiaman previously registered a request for the Cancellation of the Decision of the General Election Commission (KPU) of the City of Surabaya, regarding the Determination of the Recapitulation of Vote Count Results at the 2020 Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Surabaya Election at the Constitutional Court.

The Surabaya City KPU determines the results of the 2020 Surabaya City Election in an open plenary meeting forum. The plenary meeting for the recapitulation of votes determined that Eri Cahyadi-Armudji received 597,540 votes, and Machfud Arifin-Mujiaman received 451,794 votes.