Mardiyanto reelected as Central Java governor
Suherdjoko, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Incumbent Central Java governor Mardiyanto was reelected for the 2003-2008 period on Thursday, winning 62 of 99 votes in the local legislature.
Mardiyanto and his running mate Ali Mufiz grabbed the governor and vice governor posts respectively, defeating other contestants, including the dismissed Central Java chief of the Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) Mardijo and his partner Hisyam Alie. They only garnered 13 votes.
Slamet Kirbiantoro and Hisyam Alie got 22 votes, while Hadipranoto and Djoko Wahyudi got one vote.
Mardiyanto was initially nominated by the National Awakening Party (PKB) faction with 16 councillors in a coalition with the Indonesian Military (TNI)/National Police faction.
Mardiyanto also had the decisive support from none other than PDI Perjuangan chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri, who ordered her party members in Central Java to support him, and not the candidate from her own party.
PDI Perjuangan has 44 seats in the legislature, and the province is known as a PDI Perjuangan stronghold.
President Megawati reportedly claimed she was in support of Mardiyanto due to his experience in leading the province in the previous five years and apparently hoping he can help her party win the 2004 elections.
She even made a Soeharto-like move by dismissing her party's Central Java chief Mardijo, simply for contesting the gubernatorial election without her consent.
Mardiyanto, meanwhile, expressed his satisfaction over his victory.
"There are a lot of difficult jobs we must face. I must handle those jobs with Pak Ali Mufiz. In the first 100 days, we will figure out a vision and mission," he said.
Mardijo and other contestants graciously congratulated Mardiyanto on his victory.
Born in Surakarta on Nov. 21, 1946, Mardiyanto became a military officer after finishing the Magelang Indonesian Military Academy (Akmil) in 1970.
Like other military officers, Mardiyanto has worked in several locations throughout the country.
He has assumed several important military posts such as the Akmil Vice Governor in 1995, the Military District Command (Kodam) Diponegoro chief in 1997 and the assistant to the TNI Social, Political chief in 1998.
He has one wife, Effi Murbayati and two sons Indra and Bayu.
Meanwhile, Ali, who was born in Jepara, Central Java, July 21, 1944, was formerly a lecturer at the University of Diponegoro in Semarang, Central Java, and an activist with the largest Muslim organization Nadhlatul Ulama.
After graduating from high school in Jepara in 1963, he went to the University of Diponegoro, and majored in Public Administration.
He graduated from the university in 1971 and became a lecturer.
In 1984, Ali went to the U.S. to do postgraduate work at the University of South California (USC) in the U.S. where he finished his degree in 1987.
He has also been the chief of Central Java's chapter of the Indonesian Council of Ulemas (MUI) from 1990 to the present.