Opinion Dissenting, Judge Arief Hidayat Says Re-voting Should Be Re-voting In 6 Provinces

The panel of judges for the 2024 presidential election dispute trial. (Diah-VOI)

JAKARTA - Constitutional Court (MK) Judge Arief Hidayat expressed his different opinion or dissenting opinion on the Constitutional Court's decision regarding the 2024 presidential election dispute that Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin Iskandar sued.

The application rejected by the Constitutional Court was to cancel the results of the 2024 presidential election, to disqualify Prabowo Subianto-Gibran Rakabuming Raka, and to re-vote.

Although the Constitutional Court decided to reject Anies-Muhaimin's request, Arief considered that the Court should partially grant the request. In his view, re-voting should have been carried out in 6 provinces, according to him, there were problems in holding elections.

"Ordered the General Election Commission of the Republic of Indonesia to carry out re-voting in the electoral districts of DKI Jakarta Province, West Java Province, Central Java Province, East Java Province, Bali Province, and North Sumatra Province within 60 days from the time this decision was pronounced," said Arief at the Constitutional Court building, Monday, April 22.

Then, Arief said that the Constitutional Court should also order President Joko Widodo to be implicit and neutral in the re-voting process. Also, prohibiting the distribution of social assistance before and during the re-voting.

In his view, Arief revealed that there is an alleged strong intervention from the center of the executive branch of power which tends and clearly supports certain candidates in dispute with all of their political infrastructure.

This also refers to Jokowi's statement during the campaign, that the President may campaign and may side with one of the pairs of presidential and vice-presidential candidates.

"The assumption that the President may campaign is justification that cannot be accepted by healthy reasoning and sensitive ethics," he said.

Arief emphasized that since the 2004, 2009, 2014, and 2019 presidential elections, the government has never found any interference and confusion. However, he views the 2024 presidential election as marked by the frenzy and noise caused by the President and his apparatus being not neutral, even supporting certain candidate pairs.

"What the President has done seems to be trying to fertilize the dynastic political spirit wrapped in the narrow nepotism virus and has the potential to threaten the value of democracy in the future," said Arief.

Then, the three Constitutional Court judges have different opinions on this decision. The three constitutional judges who were dissenting opinions included Saldi Isra, Enny Nurbaningsih, and Arief Hidayat.