Constitutional Court Decision 259/PUU-XXIV/2026 is a 2026 ruling of the Constitutional Court of Indonesia on a petition for material review of the provisions of the General Elections Law and the Regional Head Elections Law that set the timing of simultaneous elections, as those provisions had been reinterpreted by the Court's earlier Decision 135/PUU-XXII/2024.^[1] The petition, brought by two individual citizens, asked the Court to attach a deadline to the legislature's revision of the two statutes.^[2] It is one of the constitutional review cases on elections in Indonesia decided in 2026.

The Court held that it had jurisdiction and that the petitioners had standing, but found no conflict with the Constitution. It reasoned that Decision 135/PUU-XXII/2024 had bound all state organs from the moment it was pronounced, that only the provisions as construed by that decision were in force, and that its direction that separate national and regional elections begin with the 2029 elections already fixed the time by which the statutes had to be amended. The operative order, pronounced on 12 August 2026, rejected the petition in its entirety.^[3][4]

¶ Background

In Decision 135/PUU-XXII/2024, pronounced on 26 June 2025, the Court declared Pasal 167(3) and Pasal 347(1) of Undang-Undang 7/2017 on general elections, and Pasal 3(1) of Undang-Undang 8/2015 on the election of governors, regents and mayors, conditionally unconstitutional unless read in new terms. Under those terms, voting for the national legislature (the DPR and DPD) and for President and Vice-President is held simultaneously, and voting for provincial and regency or city legislatures and for regional heads follows no earlier than two years and no later than two years and six months after the inauguration of the national legislators or of the President and Vice-President.^[3:1] The Court recorded that the earlier decision required the separated arrangement to apply from the 2029 general elections.^[3:2]

By the time of the petition, the legislature and the Government had not amended the two statutes to reflect that reading.^[5]

¶ Petition

The petition was received and registered on 2 July 2026 and revised on 20 July 2026.^[6] The petitioners, an advocate and the chair of a regency general elections commission, relied on Pasal 18(4), 22E(1) and 28D(1) of the 1945 Constitution, which respectively require regional heads to be elected democratically, require general elections to be direct, general, free, secret, honest and fair every five years, and guarantee fair legal certainty.^[5:1] They argued that the unamended text left two competing norms in force, that the word serentak ("simultaneous") in its older sense of five ballots on one day remained in other provisions of both statutes, and that election organisers preparing the 2029 elections could not be certain which rules applied, given that Pasal 167(6) of the General Elections Law requires the stages of an election to begin at least twenty months before polling day.^[5:2][7]

The relief sought a declaration that the three provisions, as construed in Decision 135/PUU-XXII/2024, were conditionally unconstitutional unless read as requiring a revision within one year of the new decision, guided by the Court's rulings. Alternative formulations applied the same condition to the two statutes as a whole, or set the deadline at twenty months before the 2029 elections.^[2:1] The petition also proposed that, if the legislature let the deadline pass, the technical arrangements should pass by attribution to the General Elections Commission (KPU) for regulation by a commission regulation, but expressly left that consequence out of its relief and invited the Court to set it in its legal considerations. In support it cited Decisions 168/PUU-XXI/2023, 167/PUU-XXIV/2026 and 91/PUU-XVIII/2020 on the consequences of legislative non-compliance.^[8]

¶ Ruling

The Court decided the case without hearing the House of Representatives or the President, holding the petition clear enough to decide under Pasal 54 of the Constitutional Court Law.^[9] On the merits, it held that the substance of the three provisions had changed in accordance with Decision 135/PUU-XXII/2024 and that, by the final character of the Court's decisions under Pasal 24C(1) of the Constitution, that decision had bound all state organs from 14.42 WIB on 26 June 2025. Because the earlier decision fixed the 2029 general elections as the start of the separated arrangement, the Court found no reason to set a further deadline: the legal framework had in any case to be completed before the stages of the 2029 elections began.^[3:3]

The Court further held that the unamended text did not create two equally valid norms. Only one norm was in force, the provisions as construed by Decision 135/PUU-XXII/2024, and the petitioners' argument of conflicting norms was without basis.^[3:4] It concluded that the provisions as construed did not conflict with the democratic election principles or the guarantee of fair legal certainty in Pasal 18(4), 22E(1) and 28D(1) of the Constitution.^[10]

The operative order rejected the petition in its entirety. The decision was reached in deliberation on 3 August 2026 by nine justices, with Suhartoyo presiding, and pronounced on 12 August 2026; it records no dissenting opinion.^[4:1] On the same day the Court declared inadmissible a separate petition on the General Elections Law in Decision 270/PUU-XXIV/2026.^[11]

CRPG's regulatory tracker published an account of the decision on 4 September 2026.^[12]

¶ See also

• Constitutional Court Decision 169/PUU-XXIV/2026
• Constitutional Court Decision 257/PUU-XXIV/2026
• Constitutional Court Decision 266/PUU-XXIV/2026

¶ External links

• Decision (Mahkamah Konstitusi)
• Case record (Mahkamah Konstitusi)
• CRPG: Constitutional Review of Election Law Revision Deadlines: MK 259/PUU-XXIV/2026 (crpg.id, 4 September 2026)

¶ References