Camelia Pasandaran

Voters Seek Review of Election Law

With just 21 days left to the presidential election, the Constitutional Court was asked on Tuesday to reinterpret the election law in such a way that could put nationwide preparations for the July 8 poll in jeopardy.

Two people, Refly Harun and Maheswara Prabandono, acting in their private capacities, requested a judicial review of the Presidential Election Law to find that people like them — those whose names have been left off the voters list — would be allowed to exercise their right to vote, using their identity cards.

The review, if the court agrees to one, would cover two articles in the law stating that only those whose names appeared on the voters list would be allowed to vote.

Refly, a senior researcher with the Center for Electoral Reform (Centro), and Maheswara were both unable to vote at the April 9 legislative elections because they were not registered and have now found their names left off the list again for the July 8 election.

If the court were to uphold their protest, and allow identity cards as proof of eligibility, election-day preparations by the General Elections Commission (KPU) might be thrown into chaos.

KPU would have to prepare a new regulation reflecting the change, conduct a massive socialization program to inform election officials nationwide of the change and then print extra ballot papers for the estimated millions of people still not on the list.

“Our rights are being violated by the [KPU] and it is likely that there are many more eligible voters unregistered for the election,” Refly said.

“If the court approves our judicial review, as we believe it will, Centro will propose that the KPU allow unregistered eligible voters to vote by showing their identity card.”

He said the two articles contradicted the Constitution’s guarantee of equality for all citizens before the law.

Many election observers believe that millions of voters were unable to exercise their suffrage rights on April 9 because of registration issues. While no one knows the exact number, most estimate that it affected more than 10 percent of the total number of voters.

Amid mounting criticism of its handling of the voters list, the KPU mounted a large-scale voter registration program for the presidential election. The result has added five million names to the voters list.

Despite this, however, Refly and other observers claim many people have still be left out.

Presidential adviser Denny Indrayana recently suggested Cetro seek a judicial review on the matter, saying there was a possibility the government could issue a government regulation-in-lieu-of-law based on a court verdict.

The judicial review request filed on Tuesday does not name Cetro as an applicant. “In this case, the one that files the review should be the one who lost their right to vote,” Hadar Gumay, chairman of Cetro, said on Tuesday. “For that reason, we want Refly to file the review request.”

Hadar said the problem was the responsibility of the KPU.

“It has violated voters’ rights to vote,” he said. “It should not let technical problems hamper eligible voters from exercising their rights.”

Commenting about the short amount of time left before the presidential election, Constitutional Court secretary general Janedjri M. Ghafar said on Tuesday that it was always possible for the court to prioritize certain cases if needed.

“Reflecting on some other cases, such as another judicial review of the Presidential Election Law filed by a pollster, there is always a possibility for the court to give more priority to a case,” Janedjri said.

“As for the case filed by Refly, we have not yet registered the case. We are now in the process of checking whether the administrative requirements have been completed.”

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