Mayoral candidates pull out the stops ahead of election

Iman Dwianto Nugroho, The Jakarta Post/Surabaya

Bambang Dwi Hartono hurries down the stairs of a two-story shop- house on Jl. Genteng Kali in Surabaya. Entering a room on the first floor, he pores over the schedules displayed on computer screens and white boards.

"Some of you, please go to the Krembangan area immediately. We are going to have a function there," he tells a group of men in the room. Escorted by his assistant, Bambang, a former Surabaya mayor who hopes to recapture the office, swiftly walks out of the shop-house and gets into a waiting Toyota Camry. Two people on a motorcycle, one of them carrying a digital camera, follow the car.

This is a typical scene as Bambang's campaign team prepares for the mayoral election on June 27. Bambang Dwi Hartono and his running mate Arif Afandi are facing an election that will feature three other pairs of candidates for mayor and deputy mayor of Surabaya.

Besides Bambang and Arif, who have been nominated by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the other candidates are Gatot Sudjito and Benyamin Hilly (Golkar Party), Erlangga Satriagung and A.H. Thony (National Mandate Party, PAN) and Alisjahbana and Wahyudin (National Awakening Party, PKB).

Ignoring campaign rules, the candidates are already holding events and meeting with some of the 1.9 million eligible voters in the city. Though the campaign period has not begun, the local Election Supervisory Committee has taken no action to try and put a halt to this early campaigning.

The campaign team of Bambang and Arif has been the most creative in getting out the message to the public. The campaign team has organized various events, including parades, painting competitions for children and free medical check-ups.

"We learned a lot from Megawati's loss in the second round of the presidential election last year and we are not going to lose," said Saleh Ismail Mukadar, the head of Bambang and Arif's campaign team, who has 163 members.

Saleh said their core strategy was to erase the image that Bambang and Arif belonged only to the PDI-P.

"You can see the color red, the color of the PDI-P, is no longer the dominant color in our campaign materials. We are also trying to attract as many young voters as possible," said Saleh, adding that the candidates were targeting 56 percent of the total vote in the election.

The campaign team of Erlangga and Thony is focusing more on face-to-face meetings with voters. The team has set up security posts in nearly every neighborhood in Surabaya neighborhood in a program called Gardu RT, which literally means "neighborhood post".

Djaka Mujiana, the chief of Erlangga and Thony's campaign team, said they had established 193 posts throughout the city.

The other candidates are focusing more on maintaining the loyalty of their core voters. Gatot and Benyamin have visited the strongholds of the Golkar Party and the Prosperous Peace Party (PDS), the two parties that nominated them for the election.

Alisjahbana and Wahyudin are concentrating on the existing members of the National Awakening Party (PKB). The pair has recruited PKB members and supporters to go out and campaign for them. "We believe PKB members will be loyal to their party and will vote for Alisjahbana and Wahyudin," said Budiharto Tasmo, the candidates' campaign manager.