Election commission set to hold presidential dialog

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

It's confirmed: President Megawati Soekarnoputri and her rival Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will not even be in the same room during the pre-rehearsed dialogs that are to substitute for a candidates' debate ahead of the presidential election runoff.

During the dialog sessions on the evenings of Sept. 14 and Sept. 16, each of the candidates, and their running mates and supporters, will be prohibited from entering the room in the Hilton Hotel until the other leaves, said a member of the General Elections Commission (KPU), Valina Singka Subekti, on Wednesday.

Susilo, a former minister in Megawati's Cabinet, had earlier challenged her to a one-to-one debate. The President's campaign strategists, however, claimed that she was just abiding by the KPU rules, saying this prevented a debate. KPU members had said they would not hold a debate if the two sides were not willing.

As in the dialogs ahead of the July 5 presidential election, both the panelists and audience members will be handpicked by the KPU.

"Each night during the three-day campaign period, the KPU will stage a two-hour discussion in which each pairing will be given an hour to appear on stage and answer questions from the panelists. However, 10 minutes will be cut from this for commercial breaks," Valina told reporters here.

Three different moderators will direct the flow of questions and answers in the dialogs, which will be aired live by state- owned television station TVRI.

All private television stations are expected to also broadcast the programs live as the dialogs constitute the only things in any way approximating to a debate during the campaign.

To decide who will appear first, the KPU will hold a draw on Friday. It has also yet to decide on the panelists.

"We are still awaiting the views of the two campaign teams as to who the panelists will be," Valina said.

In its latest decision, the KPU has also aborted its plan for the presidential candidates to engage in "debates" outside of Jakarta. "That would be too costly. We don't have the money," she said.

The KPU will spend over Rp 600 million (US$65,000) on staging the dialogs.

Commenting on the debate format, mass communications expert with the University of Indonesia, Efendy Ghazali, said that it was "a terrible loss" that the electorate would not have the chance to witness a face-off between the candidates.

"There should have been no reluctance from both candidates to embark on a full-fledged debate as it is only a political show. No one candidate could present his solutions to the country's myriad problems in one or two minutes," he told The Jakarta Post.

However, when asked about the decision to limit the audience members to the candidates' supporters, he said: "Although this is only a show, the debate should have an aura of sacredness. We don't want to see the supporters of the two camps booing each other."