Teacher elected Cirebon mayor

Teacher elected Cirebon mayor

CIREBON, West Jawa: Two teachers, Subardi and Agus Alwafier,
won a landmark direct election for mayor and deputy mayor for
2003/2008 respectively here on Tuesday.

The team of Subardi, 39, of the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle, and Agus, 42, of the National Mandate Party, won
support from 15 local councillors to beat Golkar candidates
Sunaryo HW and Arief Natadiningrat by just a vote in the second
run-off.

The two teams were tied at 14 votes each in the first two
rounds of voting before the other deputy mayoral candidate Enang
Iman Gana of the Justice and Unity Party threw his weight behind
Subardi and Agus.

Security was tight with the presence of some 340 police
officers guarding the legislative building during the election,
which went off peacefully. Local police deployed two armored cars
and bomb disposal experts to anticipate any trouble.

Subardi teaches at an elementary school in the neighboring
town of Indramayu, while Agus, who is the deputy speaker of the
local legislature, is a teacher with the Al-Azhar educational
foundation in Cirebon.

Both the legislative council speaker, Suryana, and the head of
the local education agency, Agung Sumaryana, called on the newly-
elected mayor to make education his top priority. -- JP