Record turnout consolidates Susilo's lead

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Makassar

Just a week ahead of the July 5 election, presidential candidate Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono drew a huge crowd in his campaign rally in Jakarta on Sunday, giving credence to opinion polls putting him first in the race.

Some 70,000 people packed the Bung Karno sports stadium to see Susilo, causing massive traffic jams along the roads leading to the country's biggest sports' fixture in Central Jakarta.

Susilo, a retired four-star general who appeared with his running mate, Jusuf Kalla, expressed optimism he would secure up to 40 percent of votes in the first round of the poll.

The latest opinion survey released on Wednesday by the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES) shows an increase in Susilo's popularity to 45 percent, more than the combined total of his four contenders -- Megawati Soekarnoputri, Wiranto, Amien Rais and Hamzah Haz.

"I have learned from opinion polls and my time in the field that we are winning the mandate of the people during the election," said Susilo who is nominated by the Democratic Party.

"It is not excessive if we are optimistic we will be the top polling ticket in the first round (of elections) and take the second round too," he added.

A possible run-off will be held on Sept. 20 between the top two candidates if none of the five candidates wins more than 50 percent of over 153 million voters in the first round.

"I wish the Indonesian people could exercise their political rights in a proper democratic environment, where slander and untruthfulness were not the rule," Susilo said, referring to smear campaigns against him.

In a campaign spread by SMS messages, Susilo is accused of secretly being a Christian, while the message also says his new Democratic Party is also Christian-dominated. Kalla, meanwhile, is alleged to be hostile to ethnic Indonesian Chinese.

Outside the stadium, Susilo's supporters distributed stickers and flyers showing 73 percent of the Democratic candidates elected in the April 5 legislative election were Muslims.

The campaign saw hundreds of doves and balloons released and Susilo and Kalla sang several songs with cheering supporters.

Meanwhile, in South Sulawesi, National Mandate Party candidate Amien Rais promised on Sunday to include at least three women in his cabinet if elected as president.

Speaking during a meeting with a women's community group in the provincial capital of Makassar, Amien said the three women would be appointed as the foreign affairs minister, justice minister and women's empowerment minister respectively. He did not name the women.

Amien was not able to meet his supporters in the four other regencies of Parepare, Palopo, Watampone and Enrekang after the Pelita Air Service could not provide him with a chartered helicopter to fly him there.

A member of his campaign team, Ramli Haba, said this was a form of campaign sabotage. Pelita had earlier promised to provide a helicopter to Amien, he said.

Pelita Air Service could not be reached for comment.

Campaigning in the West Kalimantan capital of Pontianak, incumbent President Megawati Soekarnoputri denied she was exploiting the gender issue to campaign in the election.

"It is a fact that I am the only female candidate, so it's normal if I promote issues that encourage Indonesian women," she told her supporters at the Sultan Syarif Abdurrachman Alqadrie stadium in Pontianak.

"Women bear children. Men who criticize women politicians are also born by women. This is a fact," she was quoted by Antara as saying.

Megawati had earlier been targeted by several clerics in Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), who recently issued an edict calling on Muslims not to vote for a female president because it was against sharia law.

In Pekanbaru, Golkar Party presidential candidate Wiranto distributed masks for travellers affected by haze from forest fires and cropland burnings across Riau.

"Environmental damage takes place every day in every part of our country. A good leader must stop this damage soon," he was quoted by Antara as saying before his supporters at the Rumbai sports stadium.

Riau and other parts of Sumatra and West Kalimantan are annually blanketed with thick acrid smoke.

In a campaign held by incumbent Vice President Hamzah Haz in Jember, East Java, a group affiliated to his United Development Party (PPP), the Ka'bah Youth Movement (GPK), pledged loyalty to him.

The group urged Hamzah to throw out GPK members who supported other presidential candidates.

The GPK Jakarta branch has reportedly voiced support for the Amien-Siswono Yudhohusodo team.