Presidential candidates ignore support from advisers

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Campaign teams established to boost the chances of presidential candidates in the coming presidential election were unlikely to have much effect because they lacked the necessary expertise in image management and mass communication, a political analyst said.

The teams were unlikely to cooperate well with presidential aspirants because most candidates were not focussed on improving their public image, political analyst Daniel Sparringa of Surabaya-based Airlangga University told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

"Most of the candidates fail to listen to the advice of their campaign teams and consider themselves already selling (themselves and their message)," Daniel said.

"Promises and commitments are not enough to win people's support, it's what people think about the promises that counts."

Political campaigning was a new thing for Indonesian politicians and so far none of them were doing a good job, he said.

"Campaigning is about building a political image and you need people with experience to do that. We don't yet have these experts," Daniel said.

He was commenting on the establishment of campaign teams such as the Amien Rais Center for the National Mandate Party (PAN) leader and presidential candidate, the Gus Dur Crisis Center for Abdurrahman Wahid of the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the Mega Center for President Megawati Soekarnoputri of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

The Mega Center has suggested a revision to the PDI-P's original plan of pushing for a straight win in the first round of presidential elections by preparing a B plan if Megawati fails to win a majority vote.

Admitting problems in creating a "positive and humble" image for Megawati so far, the Mega Center aims to portray a more humane picture of the PDI-P leader.

"Megawati herself has admitted that there were a lot of things she should have done before (the legislative election) to improve her image," Mega Center member Cornelys Lay told the Post over the weekend.

He said PDI-P party members now understood they had failed to effectively communicate with the people.

"We do not expect the race to finish in the first round, as we still need more time to build our new image," Cornelys said.

Public relations expert Wimar Witoelar said image building was a new field politicians and their campaign teams had to learn.

"I think it is a positive development that politicians are trying to win people's support instead of buying their votes," Wimar said.

However, from the public relations point of view, no presidential candidate was selling themselves effectively, he said.

Indonesia will hold its first direct presidential election on July 5, with the run-off set for Sept. 20.