Candidates, teams gear up for Sept. 20 election runoff

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.