Gubernatorial election a 'circus': activists

Ahmad Junaidi The Jakarta Post Jakarta

Activists said on Saturday that all gubernatorial candidates should be invited to present their mission and vision in a City Council plenary session, not only the few candidates selected by the council's factions.

"If all the candidates are not invited, it means the earlier process was just "a circus" to make the election look democratic," lawyer and woman activist Nursyahbani Katjasungkana said.

Nursyahbani, who was nominated by the Jakarta Residents Forum (Fakta) as a vice gubernatorial candidate, hoped all the candidates would be invited to a transparent debate, saying that it was a political education for the public.

She said that if the council factions only selected their own candidates it would justify public suspicion that all the talk about public participation was just lip service.

"It's cheating, if we are not invited to deliver our missions and visions while the council has invited the public to register as candidates," Nursyahbani said.

Chairman of the Urban Poor Consortium (UPC) Wardah Hafidz also supported Nursjahbani's statement that all the candidates should be invited to deliver their vision and mission.

"Since the beginning we doubted the council's willingness to conduct a democratic and transparent gubernatorial election. We prefer a direct election to the current indirect election," Wardah said.

UPC earlier nominated becak (three-wheeled pedicab) driver Rasdullah as a gubernatorial candidate. Rasdullah's candidacy is likely to be dropped since he has only completed elementary school.

The gubernatorial election regulation requires that a candidate should be at least a senior high school graduate.

As many as 72 people have registered as gubernatorial candidates while 42 people registered as vice gubernatorial candidates last month.

According to the election regulation, the council's 11 factions would select the candidates through interviews. The factions then decide on two persons, as candidates for governor and vice governor respectively.

The 22 pairs of candidates are then invited to deliver their vision and mission in the council's plenary session.

Chairman of the United Development Party faction Chudlory Syafei Hadzami revealed that his faction would not check all the 114 candidates forms.

"We will check about 20 forms from the candidates we know," Chudlary who is also deputy chairman of the City Council, said last Friday.

Chairman of the Crescent and Star Party faction Syarifien Maloko agreed with Chudlary's statement, revealing that his faction would only check about 15 candidates forms.

"We'll only check candidates who have the same vision as our faction. We should be realistic, its impossible to check all the candidates," Syarifien said.