Jakarta. Elected lawmaker Tia Rahmania has filed a lawsuit against the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) following her dismissal from the party and the annulment of her election due to alleged vote manipulation.

PDI-P has replaced Tia with Bonnie Triyana, who will assume the House of Representatives seat representing Banten province during the upcoming inauguration.

The party's ethics council recently found Tia guilty of inflating her vote count to secure the seat, concluding that Bonnie had actually received more votes based on documents from the General Election Commission (KPU).

However, Tia has denied any wrongdoing and is challenging the party’s decision in court, according to her attorney.

“The lawsuit has been filed, and the first hearing is set for October 10,” her lawyer, Jupryanto Purbo, said on Friday.

The lawsuit names members of PDI-P’s ethics council, the party’s leadership board, the Election Oversight Body (Bawaslu), and the KPU as defendants.

Jupryanto argued that the vote inflation was due to "errors by election officials" and not an intentional act of manipulation by Tia.

“Tia did not commit fraud, and the local Bawaslu has confirmed that the discrepancies occurred due to mistakes made by election officials,” Jupryanto explained.

On Thursday, Tia received the official dismissal letter from PDI-P, following her exclusion from the KPU’s list of lawmakers to be inaugurated next month.

“The dismissal letter was signed on September 13, but it wasn’t delivered to Tia until Thursday, raising suspicions of a plot to remove her from the party just before the inauguration,” Jupryanto added.

Tia had initially been declared the winner with 37,386 votes. However, after the investigation and recount, her vote count was reduced to 35,760, while Bonnie, who will now take the seat, received 36,504 votes.

In a similar case, PDI-P also annulled the election of Rahmad Handoyo from Central Java's electoral district over vote manipulation accusations and appointed Didik Haryadi as his replacement.

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