JAKARTA (Yosefardi) – The Constitutional Court (MK) has today (Jan. 25) rejected the lawsuit filed by the losing pair of candidates of North Kalimantan gubernatorial election to uphold the victory of Irianto Lambrie and his running mate Udin Hianggio.
The MK’s justices, in their consideration, rejected the lawsuit filed by Jusuf Kasim Serang and his running mate Marthin Billa due to the pair have no legal standing.
The MK’s justices, cited Article 158 paragraph 1 of the Law 8/2015 on Regional Election, said the losing pair of the North Kalimantan gubernatorial election can be only file a lawsuit when the margin of their votes with the votes collected by the winner of the election is only 2% in maximum.
While based on the results of the General Election Commission’s (KPU) official counting, Irianto-Udin won the election with securing 143,592 out of total 270,776 eligible votes or around 53.03%, which is 6.06% above the votes collected by Jusuf-Marthin.
Irianto-Udin entered the race with the backing of 7 political parties (PDI-P, PKS, PAN, PBB, Democratic Party, Golkar, and Gerindra). Irianto is a former acting Governor of North Kalimantan from April 2013 to April 2015. Udin, meanwhile, serves as the Chairman of Golkar’s Tarakan branch. Udin, who is also former Mayor of Tarakan was supporter of Jokowi-Kalla in the 2014 presidential election. (haryantosuharman@yosefardi.com)