Third, the Central Jakarta District Court decision should serve as an evaluation of KPU performance, especially its legal team. It is obvious that KPU has not made maximum efforts to address Prima Party’s lawsuit. It seems as if KPU only focuses on the argument that Prima Party’s lawsuit is outside the jurisdiction of the Central Jakarta District Court and thus the lawsuit is obscuur libel. KPU may have been overconfident, given that Prima Party’s previous legal efforts failed at Bawaslu and the Jakarta State Administrative Court.
KPU’s lack of anticipation continued, even when the Central Jakarta District Court issued an Interlocutory Decision on January 20, 2023, which rejected KPU’s rebuttal arguing that it has absolute authority and stated that the Central Jakarta District Court had the authority to examine and decide on a quo case. This can be seen from KPU’s stance, which decided not to present witnesses or experts during the evidentiary hearing at the Central Jakarta District Court. If it wished to, KPU could have asked for support from government lawyers, to assist it in the legal process at the Central Jakarta District Court. Unfortunately, this step was not taken. KPU chairman instead gave power of attorney to KPU members, experts, structural officials, staff, and functional personnel, who did not really contribute during the hearing.
In fact, the contents of Prima Party’s lawsuit are no joke. It no longer asked to be declared as an election contestant but for the election to be postponed. This can have a fatal consequence for the stability of the state administration and Indonesia’s democracy.
KPU should understand well that GE2024 cannot exist in a vacuum, free from the efforts of parties who still question the urgency of holding an election in 2024. In fact, there are still discourses from a number of influential political party figures and high-ranking state officials, inclined to postpone the election and extend the executive and legislative term of office.
What’s next?
Like it or not, KPU must take legal steps to appeal against the Central Jakarta District Court decision. Drawing lessons from past experience, KPU must prepare a solid, strong and meticulous legal team in the appeal hearing. KPU must not underestimate or take this matter lightly, even though the majority of the public are against the Central Jakarta District Court decision. It should be remembered that the court has independence in upholding law and justice through the decisions they make. So anything can happen. KPU’s job is to close legal loopholes that can be used by certain elements to carry out unconstitutional and undemocratic move, such as postponing elections.
Most importantly, going forward, KPU must work within legal corridors, be professional, transparent and with integrity, to ensure that it can organize credible and democratic elections. Prima Party’s lawsuit demonstrated that KPU was not fully able to build open and accountable communication regarding its work in organizing the electoral process. This must not be repeated.
Furthermore, if during the election process political parties find strong and irrefutable evidence that maladministration or carelessness, unprofessionalism, and inaccuracy occurred in the electoral procedures, for example KPU’s inaction in implementing Bawaslu decision, they should resolve it using Bawaslu’s administrative violation reporting channel.
In addition, sanctions for administrative violations based on Article 461.6 of Law 7/2017 can take the form of administrative improvements to procedures or mechanisms, in accordance with statutory provisions, written warning, exclusion from certain stages of the electoral process, and other administrative sanctions, in accordance with the provisions of the Election Law. So there is a recovery mechanism that is sufficiently capable of delivering justice and restoring the rights of the complainant. This includes cases such as that experienced by Prima Party. In addition, if there are strong facts that there has been a violation of code of ethics, the matter can be brought to the Election Organizer Ethics Council.
The public must also remain alert and vigilant in the run up to GE2024. A handful of political elites have turned out to be insincere, and are trying to circumvent their commitment to hold a timely election. It turned out that courts can also be used as an “entry point” by certain elements to postpone elections.
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Thus, judicial institutions that do not have authority and are not part of the election law enforcement system must be reminded to refrain from interfering in the electoral process; what’s more, it is clearly against the constitution and commitment to democracy.
The stakes are too high and too costly for the future and unity of this Republic if the agenda of the pro-status quo group to postpone elections and extend term of office is allowed to succeed. The country will descend into chaos and Indonesia will move backward and become an international pariah, because the democracy and people’s sovereignty have been put in harm’s way. We must not let this happen. (Titi Anggraini)