City councilor candidates 'rich'

City councilor candidates 'rich'

JAKARTA (JP): At least 41 city councilor candidates, more than
half of the 76 hopefuls to be sworn in as city councilors in
August, turned out to have only senior high school educations, an
official said on Friday.

Deputy chairman of the Jakarta Provincial Elections Committee
(PPD I) Harun Al Rasyid said that the information was uncovered
when checking documents supplied by the 76 city councilor
candidates.

The background check done by 48 party representatives showed,
among other things, that the capital's newly elected councilors
are all rich, all of them Jakarta residents and pass the
education requirements.

Quoting data from the office, Harun said that out of the
remaining 35 candidates, 31 had bachelor degrees and four had
college diplomas.

Harun added that two of the 76 city councilor candidates had
submitted only photocopies of their high school diplomas.

"Official letters from the high schools of the two candidates
certify that both are their graduates... one is from the Golkar
Party and the other if from the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle (PDI Perjuangan)."

However, another senior PPD I official, who asked for
anonymity, said that the two candidates who had failed to submit
original high school degrees were both from PDI Perjuangan.

"They are Benny Abdullah and Ishak Iskandar," the official
told The Jakarta Post.

When asked about the audit by PPD I to establish the wealth of
each candidate, the official said that it was not about cash, but
land and assets.

"A Golkar candidate, for example, has about a 5-hectare plot
of land in Sukabumi. A PDI Perjuangan candidate here owns a house
in Medan and also an oil palm plantation there," the official
said.

He added that a Golkar candidate and a United Development
Party (PPP) candidate also had more than two cars, including a
BMW and a Mercedes Benz respectively.

"All the coming city councilor candidates are very, very
rich," the official said laughingly.

While both Harun and PPD I chairman Djafar Badjeber refused to
reveal the names of the selected candidates, the official said
that new names in the list included Soemiyati Soekarno, Azis
Boeang, Maringan Pangaribuan and Santayana Kiemas of the PDI-
Perjuangan party.

The official said old names included Sugeng Suprijatna,
Fatommy Asaari, Ade Suprijatna, Tadjus Sobirin and Amarullah
Asbah of Golkar and Djafar Badjeber, Saud Rachman and Ali Imran
Husein of PPP.

There are 85 seats on the council, of which nine are allocated
to the Indonesian Military (TNI).

When asked if the same background check was done on the nine
TNI candidates, Harun said that TNI was taking care of "its own
people".

"It does not mean that TNI does not respect us. It's just that
TNI would rather do the background check by itself. The results
will be given to us once the check is done."

The city councilor candidates, Djafar added, will be sworn in
between Aug. 19 and Aug. 28.

"Mayoralty councilor candidates will be sworn in between Aug.
3 and Aug. 5. Members of the House of Representatives (DPR) will
be sworn in between Oct. 1 and Oct. 3." (ylt)