Watchdog reports big travel costs of candidates

Dadan Wijaksana, Jakarta

The sheer size of Indonesia hints at the need for a virtually bottomless purse for trips during the recently concluded month- long presidential campaign.

Staff members of the campaign teams were reluctant to provide exact figures on travel costs during the campaign, some saying that calculations were still being made and that the final results would be made available to the General Elections Commission.

But the watchdog Transparency International Indonesia (TII) estimated that total costs for the five candidates to charter aircraft during the campaign was Rp 6.5 billion.

"The actual figure could be much higher as we could only monitor 19 provinces," said Utami Nurul Hayati, the TII project assistant.

Utami said charter airlines such as Pelita Air Service and Trans Wisata were among the companies that benefited the most from the candidates' travel, but efforts to seek confirmation from the charter airlines were unsuccessful.

Presidential candidate Wiranto and his running mate Solahuddin Wahid were the most traveled candidates, with some Rp 2.5 billion having been spent chartering planes in the 19 provinces, according to the watchdog.

Hamzah Haz and his running mate Agum Gumelar paid some Rp 1.4 billion, according to TII. Incumbent President Megawati Soekarnoputri and her running mate Hasyim Muzadi were estimated to have spent more than Rp 1 billion for charter flights.

The pairings of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono-Jusuf Kalla and Amien-Siswono were estimated to have spent Rp 716 million and Rp 693 million, respectively.

The costs for transportation were still less than that spent on media advertisements, mainly broadcast ads, which amounted to Rp 72 billion, TII said.