Election Commission Must Make Detailed Rules on MK Verdict Allow Campaigning on Campus

JAKARTA – Former Chairman KPU Ilham Saputra asked the KPU to immediately implement the Constitutional Court (MK) ruling that allows regional election campaigns on campus. It is known that the Constitutional Court in ruling number 69/PUU-XXII/2024 allows regional election campaigns on campus as long as they obtain permission and do not bring campaign attributes.

“The KPU must of course immediately follow up by lowering the Constitutional Court’s decision into a KPU regulation along with the technical details. If necessary, this is very important to make at the technical level,” said Ilham, Monday (16/9/2024).

He hopes that the KPU will not be late in executing the Constitutional Court’s decision. Because, it can cause problems such as the same schedule or campaigning on the same campus.

“The Constitutional Court has emphasized that as long as there is permission from the campus where the education is taking place.
“Of course, this needs to be regulated in such a way as to how the permits are, how the regional election contestants can campaign in educational institutions or campuses,” said Ilham.

“Because in our experience yesterday, if it is not regulated in as much detail as possible, I am worried that later, for example, there will be a campaign on the same campus or something like that, this will become a problem in the future. So it will be a problem in the future,” he added.

Ilham also asked the KPU to immediately disseminate technical campaign regulations on campus to the public, contestants, and academics on campus.

“Because I am worried that if this is not socialized well, there will be different understandings of the Constitutional Court’s decision which will later make the implementation of the campaign problematic,” he said.

Ilham said that when he was the chairman of the KPU, there was a schedule change made by the contestants. And it was very detrimental to one of the contestants.

“Our experience in several places related to campaigns is that the KPU then takes action, for example, by changing the campaign schedule in several places. That was my experience in Aceh, it was very dangerous because it benefited and harmed one of the candidate pairs,” he said.

(jon)