Candidates, teams gear up for Sept. 20 election runoff
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Presidential candidates and their campaign teams made use of the extended holiday to solicit grassroots support ahead of the runoff, which will take place in a week.
Golkar Party leader Akbar Tandjung reminded all the eight political parties grouped under the Nationhood Coalition on Monday, to use whatever means within the remaining week to ensure presidential candidate Megawati Soekarnoputri and her running mate Hasyim Muzadi collected more votes than their contenders.
"We have to go all out using our political machines to lure people's support. Without grassroots support political parties cannot survive," Akbar told supporters of the parties in Bandung on Monday.
According to Akbar, if the parties's political machines worked, Megawati could garner about 55 percent of the vote to secure the presidency.
The government declared Sept. 13 a holiday, to observe the Ascension Day of Prophet Muhammad, which fell on Sept. 12 this year.
Earlier on Sunday, Megawati inaugurated Agro Nur El-Falaq Islamic boarding school in Pulutan village in the Central Java town of Salatiga. Speaking to thousands of people, she said, if she was given another mandate, she would focus on the development of agribusiness and fisheries.
Among state officials accompanying her were Minister of Industry and Trade Rini M.S. Soewandi, Minister of Health Achmad Sujudi, Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Rokhmin Dahuri and Central Java Governor Mardiyanto.
While Megawati was delivering her speech, her supporters distributed hundreds of postcards displaying the president with refugees of the sectarian conflict in Sampit, West Kalimantan. The other side of the postcard contains the five main programs of the Megawati-Hasyim ticket.
Salatiga Police detective chief Adj. Comr. Bambang Sutanto immediately dispatched his personnel to seize the postcards and promised to report the case to the local election supervisory commission.
Meanwhile, Megawati's rival in the runoff, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, installed on Monday about 26,000 volunteers who would witness all polling stations across Jakarta on behalf of Susilo and his running mate Jusuf Kalla.
Susilo urged the volunteers to report any violations that they observed at polling stations, to prevent cases of vote rigging.
Accompanied by National Awakening Party (PKB) chairman Alwi Shihab and deputy chairman Mahfud M.D., Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) youth figure Syaifullah Yusuf and Zanuba Arifah Chafsoh Rahman, a daughter of PKB patron Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid, Susilo also attended a function at the Al Fatah Islamic boarding school in his hometown of Pacitan in East Java on Saturday.
The PKB and NU figures called on hundreds of NU supporters to exercise their wisdom and choose "a leader who manages to create a better Indonesia."
"Gus Dur has said he will not exercise his right to vote in the election runoff. He, however, has asked us (PKB executives) to support Pak Susilo because he (Susilo) promises to bring reform for a better Indonesia," Mahfud said.
Susilo asked state officials and state institutions to remain neutral, and refrain from interfering with the political rights of the people in the runoff, for the sake of democracy.