Campaigners take breaks; save energy for final round

Bambang Nurbianto, Jakarta

The members of the five presidential campaign teams are taking it easy during the fourth round of the campaign in Jakarta, saving their energies for the final round from June 27 to July 1.

During the fourth round from June 21 to June 26, none of the teams are pressing ahead with the dialogs previously scheduled by the teams and the Jakarta General Elections Commission in five municipalities and the Thousand Islands regency

All campaign managers pointed to one problem -- lack of money.

Herry Suprapto, secretary to the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono- Jusuf Kalla team, said dialogs for Thursday were not planned as his people were focusing on preparing for a rally on June 27.

"We need to save our energies for the rally at the Bung Karno sports complex's main stadium on June 27, which will be attended by our candidates," Herry told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

He said that unlike the Democratic Party campaign for the April 5 legislative elections, the Susilo-Kalla ticket had only limited financial resources to campaign ahead of the July 5 poll.

On Thursday, he said, canvassers in Jakarta's five municipalities would confine themselves to distributing posters and other Susilo-Kalla paraphernalia.

During the fourth round, the Gen. (ret) Wiranto and Solahuddin Wahid team were scheduled to hold dialogs on June 21, the Megawati Soekarnoputri- Hasyim Muzadi team on June 22, the Amien Rais-Siswono Yudohusodo team on June 23, and the Hamzah Haz-and Agum Gumelar team on June 25.

Enggard Joshua of the Wiranto team, said that dialogs would not be organized on Monday as the national campaign team had not disbursed the necessary funds.

"We hope that dialogs can be held in the final round. We plan to organize dialogs in five municipalities on July 1," he said.

Sahrianta Tarigan, the deputy treasurer of the Megawati-Hasyim campaign, said that his team would on Tuesday be providing public information on how to vote on July 5. He said other team members would hold discussions with the volunteers who were charged with monitoring the vote in polling stations on election day.

"We will warn them of the need to observe the ballot count closely" to avoid irregularities, said Sahrianta, chairman of the Prosperous Peace Party (PDS).

The chairman of the Amien-Siswono campaign team, Ahmad Somad Karim, also said his team would not hold public dialogs on Wednesday. Rather, he said, his workers would provide free medical services for the poor in North, South, West and East Jakarta.

He said the money for this had been collected from a number of local donors. He stressed that his team had not received any money from Amien's national campaign center, saying that the national team was also facing financial constraints.

Somad said other campaign workers would concentrate on preparing for a rally at the Bung Karno sports complex's main stadium on June 26.

Suaidy, the chairman of the Hamzah-Agum campaign team, said his team would not hold dialogs in four of Jakarta's five municipalities on June 24. He said it would instead engage in "soft campaigning" like distributing Hamzah and Agum paraphernalia.

The only dialog to be held by the Hamzah-Agum team would be in North Jakarta, and would be confined to women, said Suaidy, who is also the chairman of the United Development Party's Jakarta chapter.