Gubernatorial election a mere circus: Activists
Gubernatorial election a mere 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 Chudlory'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.