Hamzah's misses two campaigns in Jakarta

Bambang Nurbianto, Jakarta

Presidential candidates need every opportunity to promote themselves and win voters. But with campaigning following so close on the heels of that for the legislative election, their strategists are seeking to manage resources as best they can.

In the case of Hamzah Haz and running mate Gen. (ret) Agum Gumelar, this has meant skipping two indoor campaign meetings scheduled by the Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPUD Jakarta). Campaign teams for four other candidates have so far used all opportunities as scheduled by the KPUD.

In hoping for a more cost-efficient campaign method, Hamzah's Jakarta team simply distributed posters on Monday to motorists at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle.

In South and North Jakarta they also distributed drinking water; it is not clear yet whether the Jakarta Election Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu Jakarta) will categorize these "sympathetic" campaigns as vote buying.

Chairman of the South Jakarta campaign team for Hamzah-Agum, Musanif, said Monday's campaign involved only 10 team members distributing 25 boxes of water and 500 posters to bus drivers. One box of water costs only about Rp 15,000 (US$1.63).

On June 6, the teams in the five municipalities also passed up an opportunity to campaign in the city. They argued that they were focusing their attention on preparations for an open-door campaign in the former Kemayoran airport on June 8, which Hamzah and Agum did attend.

Chairman of the Central Jakarta team, Zakaria Rachmad, said chairman of the Jakarta provincial team Ahmad Suaidy had told them that there were no funds for municipality-level campaigns.

Suaidy merely said that money would be spent only where necessary, and that "sympathetic campaigns" were more efficient.

He denied that his team had encountered difficulties in mobilizing mass support for such campaigns, saying that the United Development Party (PPP), chaired by Hamzah, had a large number of members that could be deployed at any campaign event.

KPUD Jakarta and the teams of the five pairs of candidates arranged jointly the schedule for campaigning in the city. Each pair has five indoor campaign opportunities at the municipal level and one outdoor campaign at the provincial level.

The commission has prepared campaign venues in all five municipalities and in Thousand Islands regency for dialog campaigns. It has also prepared the Bung Karno Sports Complex and the former Kemayoran airport for outdoor campaign rallies.