JAKARTA (Yosefardi) – The Constitutional Court rejected on Monday (Oct 7) an appeal to overturn Soekarwo and his running mate Syaifullah Yusuf’s victory in East Java gubernatorial election. The appeal was submitted by a losing candidate.
The decision was issued amid recent hullabaloo following investigation conducted by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) on bribery allegations related in the handling of post elections disputes which dragged the non-active Constitutional Court Chief Justice Akil Mochtar as suspect.
Khofifah Indar Parawansa and her running mate Herman S. Sumawiredja, who took second place on official counting result, claimed the August 29 election was riddled with fraud. In her plea, Khofifah demanded the Court to order re-election and disqualify Soekarwo from the race.
“The appeal have no legal ground and unproven,” said panel of judges in their decision.
Thus, made panel of judges led by Constitutional Court Chief Justice Hamdan Zoelva, rejected the appeal entirely. Hamdan was assisted with two other Constitutional Court Judges, Anwar Usman and Maria Farida Indrati.
Responding to the court ruling, Otto Hasibuan, lawyer of Khofifah and Herman pair, said his team will file a report to the KPK. Otto earlier asked the verdict trail to be delayed following investigation conducted by the KPK over the Court’s judges. (haryantos@yosefardi.biz)