Councillor candidates eat their own to win a seat

Bambang Nurbianto The Jakarta Post Jakarta

The race to win a place on the 75-seat City Council has reportedly become so fierce that candidates from the same parties are turning on each other, going so far as to turn in fellow party members for submitting false documents to the elections commission.

Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPUD) chairman Muhamad Taufik told The Jakarta Post on Friday that he had been aware of these fierce interparty battles for some time, saying his office had received numerous reports about false documents from members of the same party.

"It might be a way for lower ranking candidates to win a seat on the council. I don't care about their motivation, the reports are very helpful to us anyway," he said.

Although the ballot papers to be used for the April 5 legislative elections will carry the symbols of 24 political parties and the names of candidates, voters can only mark the party symbols.

This means a candidate higher up on the list of a party's legislative candidates will have a better chance to win a seat.

So far, KPUD has prohibited 24 candidates from taking part in the elections because they submitted false school diplomas to the elections commission.

Taufik said the KPUD discovered many of these fake documents because of complaints filed by their fellow party members.

Mustaman, an Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) candidate from West Jakarta, was delisted because he allegedly submitted a fake diploma.

He said that a candidate from his own party reported him to the KPUD.

"I know that I was reported by my fellow party member," he said on Thursday, adding that his diploma was not false.

Sumiyati Soekarno is another PDI-P candidate who was barred from the elections for submitting false documents. Both Mustaman and Sumiyati are current members of the City Council.

Taufik said the KPUD had uncovered similar cases in almost all political parties.

He guessed that the KPUD would continue to receive such reports right up to the elections.

A total of 1,556 candidates have passed the commission's final screening.

KPUD has delisted 126 candidates for various reasons, including submitting fake documents, failing to meet requirements, being less than 21 years of age and failure to confirm the authenticity of submitted documents.