Jakarta – Mandated to settle local election disputes since 2008, the Constitutional Court has become the shrine for squealing candidates who have lost in local elections.
Rarely going beyond checking ballot counts and reviewing documents, the court's judges have found consoling heartbroken candidates their most difficult challenge.
"The task is a bore because it does not enrich my knowledge... yet it is a test of patience as people often allege us of accepting bribes and other kickbacks," court chief Mahfud MD told The Jakarta Post.
Settling election disputes was a later addition to the institution's primary mandate of reviewing laws in lights of the Constitution. The role as a referee in the post-election challenges, however, does not require less attention from the judges.
It has received this year 201 cases from a total of 244 local elections, including nine at the provincial level. Of that number, the court has settled 190 cases, but just 20 in favor of the the plaintiffs. The court overruled 124 complaints and rejected 42 others. Four cases were withdrawn by the plaintiffs.
The court said the most common allegations brought by plaintiffs included vote buying, troubles with electoral rolls, voter intimidation, and power abuse by incumbent candidates.
Mahfud said one reason plaintiffs rarely won at the court was because the court never annulled an election due to vote buying.
"You probably can prove there is vote buying during an election. But you can't prove the ballot was cast for the buyer," he said. "Most of the time, we just annul several ballot boxes," he said.
The low victory ratio for plaintiffs has kindled criticism of the court. Recently, constitutional expert Refly Harun alleged in an op-ed piece published in Kompas that some judges at the Court had accepted bribes from candidates in local electoral disputes.
Constitutional law expert Irman Putra Sidin said the high number of cases indicated that people often perceived that every election was fraudulent. "It is funny that the statistics show that the court only granted a small number of complaints. So, does that mean our country successfully embraces democracy?" he said.
The court is not the first to take on election dispute cases. Before 2008, disputes in municipal and regency elections were handled by high courts in the respective regions, while governor election disputes were handled by the Supreme Court.
The Constitution Court began handling election cases in November 2008, following the enactment of 2008 Law on Second Revision of 2004 Law on Regional Administration, which granting court the authority to mediate regional election disputes. The Home Ministry recently proposed to return the authority to local high courts.
Mahfud vowed to fulfill the court's mandate. "Of course we will continue to mediate such disputes despite boredom and an overload of cases," he said, adding that he intended to ask the government to increase the time limit for election dispute cases to 30 days from the current 14 days. On busy days, he said, the judges could hear up to a dozen witnesses in one case.
Bambang Widjojanto, who represented several local election dispute cases, had high praise for the court's ability to handle the cases. "Even though these cases don't enrich their knowledge, these judges do the job very well. Way better than the Supreme Court which once handled such cases," he said, adding that he agreed the time limit for election cases should be extended. (ipa)