REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The Constitutional Court (MK) can rule in favor of the request for a judicial review of Law No. 42/2008 on Presidential and Vice Presidential Election filed by Yusril Ihza Mahendra, a former MK chief stated.

"The MK has affirmed four times that the regulation on the presidential threshold and the simultaneous election is an open legal policy. It is regulated by law, so it is legal," Mahfud MD stated here on Wednesday.

Mahfud explained that even though it was regulated by law, the judicial review could just be accepted if there was a new condition stating that separate elections (legislative election and presidential election) were against the Constitution.

But Mahfud claimed that he did not know whether there was a new condition now which regards separate elections as against the Constitution.

Mahfud, who is a former MK chairman, explained that whatever the MK decided on the judicial review, will constitute a binding legal product.

Constitutional Expert Yusril Ihza Mahendra and Political Analyst Effendi Gazali have filed a judicial review request with the MK over the Law No. 42/2008 on the Presidential and Vice Presidential Elections.

The law sets a presidential threshold that has to be met by a political party prior to nominating its presidential and vice presidential candidates.

It also regulates a separate legislative election and a presidential election.

Yusril believes that the law is against the 1945 Constitution, which allows a political party to nominate its presidential and vice presidential candidates.

After all, the Constitution also suggests that general elections should be held once in five years.

Yusril submitted the request for a judicial review to prove that the general elections, so far, were held in an unconstitutional manner.

He backed his claim by stating that according to the 1945 Constitution, all political parties are entitled to nominate their presidential and vice presidential candidates.

But the Law No. 42/2008, among others, regulates that a political party should attain a presidential threshold before it can nominate its presidential and vice presidential hopefuls.

Based on the law, a political party will have a presidential threshold if it wins 25 percent of the votes in the legislative elections or 20 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives.

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