T-shirt business flourishing ahead of elections

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan

With candidates running in the upcoming local leadership elections rushing to provide outfits for their supporters, the ensuing flood of orders has brought smiles to T-shirt producers in the North Sumatra town of Medan.

Ignoring the scorching sun, Jafis Ham Harahap was busy putting hundreds of T-shirts, all bearing pictures of candidates running in the Labuhan regency election, out to dry in the sun.

Despite sweating profusely, the 47-year-old said he was happy it was sunny and hot as this would allow the T-shirts to dry quickly.

"If the weather stays like this, we'll be able to finish the order in record time. Right now, we have a large number of orders for T-shirts from the candidates running in the local leadership elections," Jafis said outside his kiosk in Medan.

North Sumatra's 13 regencies and municipalities will hold elections for the posts of local chief executive on June 27. Two more will hold elections in August and another two in October. The remaining areas will hold elections next year, including quake-hit Nias Island, or in 2008.

Already in the business for 22 years, Jafis has recently received a large number of orders -- for one-size-fits-all T- shirts, as well as banners -- from the different campaign teams. This week alone, he received an order for 240 T-shirts.

Another T-shirt producer, Murni, has also been receiving orders from the candidates. Recently, the 49-year-old lady just finished delivering 25,000 T-shirts. Now, she's working on another T-shirt order, as well as an order for pens.

Murni said she sold her T-shirts for between Rp 8,000 (85 US cents) and Rp 25,000 each, while Jafis sold his T-shirts for Rp 8,500 each.

If the T-shirts are supplied so that the T-shirt producers only have to print the candidate's photo on them, then the price is only Rp 1,500 each.

Jafis said he was not picky, and took whatever orders he could get.

"The flood of orders has helped me earn more money," said Jafis smiling, who claimed that the upcoming elections had boosted his turnover to around Rp 4 million this month, up from Rp 2 million last month.

"Turnover is not too bad -- it's enough to pay my employees and save some money," said the father of one, who employs five workers to help him meet the rising demand.

He predicted that more orders would come his way as the elections drew nearer.

"During the legislative and presidential elections last year, we got tons of orders. But we managed to meet them all," he said.

The results of the increasing orders for cheap T-shirts and banners are easy to see in the areas where elections are to be held.

In Medan, for instance, banners have been flying since last month, although the official campaign is confined to June 10 to June 24.

Head of the Election Supervision Committee in Medan city, Widodo Basuki, said campaign violations involving the premature erection of banners had been committed by two pairs of candidates running in the Medan mayoral election.

"We've warned them (the candidates) before to take down all the banners. We are now going to take them down ourselves," Widodo said.