Former Indonesian General Election Commission (KPU) member I Gusti Putu Artha testified before the Constitutional Court on September 30, 2026, stating that Article 18, paragraph 3 of KPU Regulation Number 19 of 2023 represents a novel exception for presidential candidates lacking foreign high school diplomas. According to Putu Artha’s testimony in case number 01/PHPU.PRES-XXIV/2026, no such exemption existed in electoral regulations spanning from the 2004 elections through 2019.
Testimony on Regulatory Exceptions at the Constitutional Court
During the preliminary examination for case 01/PHPU.PRES-XXIV/2026, I Gusti Putu Artha told the Constitutional Court that the exception allowing candidates to bypass submitting high school graduation proof if they possess higher education credentials had no precedent. As reported by Kompas.tv, Putu Artha served on the Bali KPU from 2003 to 2007 and the national KPU from 2007 to 2012. In his remarks before the court, Putu Artha noted that he reviewed historical regulations across multiple election cycles. “From the 2004 elections until the 2024 elections, in the legislative elections, I know for a fact that there was no such exception clause,” Putu Artha stated during the proceedings. He added that similar exclusions were absent from Regional Representative Council (DPD RI) elections, provincial and regency/city legislative races, and regional head elections held in 2008, 2010, 2015, and 2020. The petition challenging the regulatory framework was filed by former Deputy Minister of Law and Human Rights Denny Indrayana alongside 11 other petitioners. The Constitutional Court officially registered the lawsuit on September 17, 2026, naming the KPU as the respondent and the Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu RI) as a related party.
Comparison with Past Verification Case Studies
Putu Artha contrasted the current framework with his firsthand experiences managing candidate verification disputes during his tenure as an election commissioner. Citing an incident from the 2009 legislative elections, he described how election officials uncovered a falsified high school diploma during a joint investigation with Bawaslu. “In the context of what I experienced in the 2009 election, I found a high school diploma that was problematic, even though it had been legalized,” Putu Artha said. Upon visiting the school in Kuningan with Bawaslu representatives, officials discovered the document belonged to another individual and that the candidate had only completed the second grade of high school. The former commissioner emphasized that rigorous, physical verification of educational credentials remains essential alongside baseline document collection. His testimony forms part of the ongoing judicial review examining whether administrative prerequisites were properly enforced during the 2024 presidential election cycle.
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