A voter 'casts' a ballot during a simulation of the 2024 regional election in Pontianak, West Kalimantan on Nov 13, 2024. Thirty-seven provinces and more than 500 cities and regencies will hold simultaneous regional elections on Nov 27. - Photo: Antara
JAKARTA: The Constitutional Court has ordered the General Elections Commission (KPU) to hold reruns of the upcoming simultaneous regional elections within a year from the election day on Nov 27 should a sole candidate fail to garner enough votes to win an uncontested election.
During a hearing on Thursday (Nov 14), the court ruled in favor of petitioners in a judicial review against articles of the 2016 Regional Election law on revotes in the case of uncontested regional head candidates failing to win enough votes to win the race.
Should the sole candidate pair fail to garner more than 50 percent of the total vote, the law stated that the “blank box” will be declared the election winner, prompting the election organiser to hold a revote “the following year” or “at a later scheduled time according to the prevailing regulations”.
Plaintiffs argued that the latter phrase could potentially cause multiple interpretations and legal uncertainty pertaining to the election rerun, given that the prevailing law mandates regional elections to be held every five years.
The court agreed with the plaintiffs, Chief Justice Suhartoyo said in Thursday’s hearing that the provision contravened the 1945 Constitution and lacked clarity.
“The subsequent election must be conducted within a maximum of one year from the date of the initial vote,” Suhartoyo stated in the ruling.
Justices also asserted that regional head pairs elected during the election rerun would serve until the inauguration of their successors elected in the following elections, “provided it does not exceed a five-year term from their inauguration date”.
On Nov. 27, voters in 37 provinces and more than 500 regencies and cities will elect their governors, mayors and regents, the first time the country will hold such large-scale simultaneous regional elections.
But at least 37 regions will see single candidate pairs on the ballots, despite repeated attempts by the KPU to encourage parties to field alternative candidates, especially after the Constitutional Court also ruled in August a lower nomination threshold that raised hopes for more competitive regional races.
Election observers have noted that the number of uncontested races in the November regional poll is the highest since the country began holding simultaneous regional elections in 2015.
Last week, KPU chair Mochammad Afifuddin said election reruns would likely be held in September 2025 in regions that see a “blank box” winning the November poll.
He noted that the central government would appoint an interim regional head to lead those regions to avoid a power vacuum.
The temporary regional leader would serve until a new regional head is elected in the revotes.
New design In a separate hearing on Thursday, the Constitutional Court also granted a judicial review petition requesting a change of the ballot design for uncontested regional elections.
When a candidate pair runs unopposed, voters will be presented with the option of voting for either the sole candidate pair or a blank box in the ballot, according to the prevailing Regional Elections Law.
Voting for the box differs from abstention as the vote will be declared valid.
Petitioners argued that the current design may potentially mislead voters into choosing the sole candidate pair, given that the ballot does not provide any explanations of reasons or implications behind voting for the blank box.
The justices agreed with the plaintiffs’ argument.
“Not all voters understand that the blank column is a place to state their rejection of the only candidate pair determined by the KPU,” Justice Saldi Isra read the ruling in Thursday’s hearing.
The justices ordered the poll organiser to change the ballot design into a plebiscite, allowing voters to choose whether to “agree” or “disagree” with the sole candidate pair.
But the new uncontested election ballot design will only be applicable in the next regional elections in 2029, with the court saying that the election organisers had already printed and distributed ballots for the November elections.
On the same day, the Court rejected two petitions to put a blank box on all ballots in the upcoming simultaneous regional elections, including those with multiple candidates running.
The petitioners, three lawyers from the Greater Jakarta area, argued that including the blank box on all ballots would signal voters’ rejection of all the candidates.
They used this year’s Jakarta gubernatorial election as an example, in which popular candidates such as former Jakarta governors Anies Baswedan and Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, who had been topping various public opinion polls could not run as no political parties would nominate them.
Putting a blank box, the plaintiffs argued, would allow voters to protest against the political elites who decided on who could run in elections. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
