Record turnout consolidates Susilo's lead

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.