City Council pressured to reject Sutiyoso
Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
About 500 demonstrators from various organizations protested on Thursday in opposition to Sutiyoso's candidacy for the 2002 to 2007 term, increasing pressure on the Jakarta City Council to withdraw their support for the incumbent governor.
The majority of the demonstrators came from the Alliance of Betawi Non-Governmental Organizations (AOB) and the rest from the Alliance of Jakarta's Students' Executive Body (BEM Jakarta).
"We oppose Sutiyoso's candidacy as he often divides Betawi people into groups which oppose one against another. He tried to use us against each other for his own political interests," cried one of the demonstrators.
Komaruddin, another demonstrator, told councillors from the United Development Party (PPP) faction, that thousands of Betawi people would occupy the council building if Sutiyoso was reelected.
Betawi are demanding the next governor be an indigenous Jakartan.
Meanwhile, 30 representatives from BEM Jakarta met with leaders of several factions of the council on Thursday to present formal statements.
The statement listed three main points: Opposing gubernatorial candidates from the military and the New Order regime; rejecting Sutiyoso's candidacy; criticizing horse trading practices by the councillors during the election process.
Sutiyoso, who is paired with city secretary Fauzi Bowo, appears to be the strongest of seven pairs of candidates which are currently before the president. The president, through the home affairs minister, will return the list of gubernatorial pairings to the city council to be further processed.
Such public pressure on the council to reject Sutiyoso will likely snowball ahead of the gubernatorial election on Sept. 11 as many other groups are planning mass protests.
On Wednesday, a total of 49 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) threatened to organize street rallies and establish a people's stage near the council building to oppose Sutiyoso's bid.
The NGOs say Sutiyoso does not deserve to be reelected as he has a poor human rights records during his five-year term, including the evictions of poor people from slum areas and street vendors from where they do businesses.
They also called for the termination of the election process as the council has been accused of frequently violating election procedures which were drafted and approved by themselves.
The Justice Party (PK) will also deploy thousands of supporters. The party, who have four councillors on the council, oppose Sutiyoso's candidacy and blame him as the cause of rampant gambling in the city.
"I confirm that we will deploy our members to oppose Sutiyoso's candidacy. But we have not decided yet when we will do it," PK councillor Muhayar told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
A minor incident occurred in the council building on Thursday when a member of the Betawi Islamic Organization Association (GOIB), established by Sutiyoso's supporters, was beaten up by a member of the AOB.
Andi Soleh was hit in the face by a man known as Minan. Minan could not accept that members of the GOIB were allowed to walk about freely in the Council building while only some AOB representatives were allowed to enter the building.
"If the security officers here did not expel them from here, we will sweep this building," said another anti-Sutiyoso demonstrator.
The deteriorating situation was calmed when police officers convinced the AOB that the GOIB members had been expelled from the building.