Depok mayoral candidates offer alternatives

With Depok to hold its first direct election on June 26, the five pairs of mayoral candidates are gearing up to garner as many votes as they can from the nearly 900,000 eligible voters during the campaign period from June 9 to June 22.

According to a recent telephone poll conducted by the University of Indonesia's Political Science Research Center, the candidates have their work cut out. Winning, the center says, will mean reaching out to the almost 60 percent of the municipality's still-undecided voters.

The Jakarta Post's Bambang Nurbianto has compiled the profiles of the political teams, and looks at their policies and visions for the city, a satellite of Jakarta made up of many commuters.

Some of the many policies promised include those on business development, education, political reform and traffic systems to ease the chronic congestion in the area. -- JP