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)