http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4834&Itemid=175
Jakarta Gubernatorial Race a Dead Heat?
Written by Our Correspondent
Wednesday, 19 September 2012
Fauzi says he can win
Heavy spending and intensive advertising guarantee record turnout,
officials say
Officials are forecasting a record turnout tomorrow for the Jakarta
governor’s race between the incumbent Fauzi Bowo and his challenger, Joko
Widodo, the popular mayor of the central Java city of Solo.
Opinion polls conducted by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) and
Tempo, as well as by MNC Media and Saiful Mujani Research & Consulting had
Jokowi, as he is known, ahead by only 1-3 percent, which would be statistically
too small to measure.
Independent analysts, however, say the margin can be expected to be wider.
The race has been described as a contest between surrogates, with heavy
spending on each side as political forces realign for the 2014 presidential
election to succeed Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who cannot run again.
The Center for Political Studies at the University of Indonesia surveyed
600 respondents between Aug. 27 and Sept. 2 and found that an astonishing 93.7
percent said they would vote in the runoff. While that figure is probably
fanciful, turnout is still expected to be very strong, given the electoral
spending and the interest in the race.
Both campaigns have mounted intensified get-out-the-vote campaigns and
political spending has hit record levels, officials said.
Yudhoyono Democrats have combined with Golkar, headed by the reportedly
ailing party leader Aburizal Bakrie to back Fauzi, while Gerindra, the Great
Indonesia party headed by presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto, has combined
with the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, or PDI-P headed by former
President Megawati Sukarnoputri to line up behind Jokowi, as Joko Widodo is
known.
Jokowi outpointed Fauzi decisively in the July primary race, with 43
percent of the vote against Fauzi’s 34 percent and the other four candidates
splitting the remaining 23 percent.
Jokowi’s win was widely regarded as a major organizational and financial
victory for Prabowo, the former son-in-law of the late strongman Suharto, whose
rehabilitation continues from 1998 charges of terrorism and turning his special
forces unit loose to riot and rape Chinese during riots in Jakarta. More than
1,000 Chinese were reported killed and 160 women were raped.
Each of the country’s potential presidential candidates or principal
parties is backing a gubernatorial contender in a bid to demonstrate
organizational and money-raising clout. Although earlier odds had given the
race to Jokowi given his strong primary finish, which was built on his own
record as Solo mayor and because of his backers’ organizational skills, Fauzi
has raised record amounts of money and spent it to tighten the race
considerably.
Jokowi was named Indonesia’s best mayor in 2011 and is regarded as a
reformer, having run a relatively clean and efficient government in Solo, a
city of 520,000 people. Fauzi has been under continued fire for years because
of his inability to solve Jakarta’s unruly traffic, sewage and other problems.
Fauzi has been accused by the Indonesian Budget Center, an NGO, of
laundering US$5.8 million through welfare grants from the city government to
finance his campaign by passing the funds to institutions or community groups
with apparent political links to the incumbent.
The city administration, however, has denied any wrongdoing with regard
to the welfare grants, saying it can easily justify the marked increase in
grants this year, with spending on a series of “large-scale activities”
including sending a contingent of athletes to the National Games and an
increase in school operational aid for public and private elementary and junior
high schools.
Fauzi’s Democratic Party, which Yudhoyono heads, has been badly damaged
by a long series of scandals, the biggest over the multimillion dollar
construction of an athletes village for last year’s Southeast Asian Games.
Party officials all the way up to party leader Anas Urbaningrum and possibly
SBY himself have been implicated. The Corruption Eradication Commission is
methodically picking its way through the mess and indicting and convicting
officials as it goes.
The major loser in the primary was Aburizal Bakrie, who backed Alex
Noerdin, who got only 4.4 percent of the vote and finished fifth of the six
candidates. Noerdin was hampered by an announcement that he was being
investigated by the Corruption Eradication Commission on charges of financial
misdealings in a previous office. Golkar, however, has now swung in with the
Democrats to back Fauzi.
The next step, after the gubernatorial elections, is the realignment of
parties in preparation for the 2014 race. Prabowo’s Gerindra Party appears
unlikely to gather the 20 percent of the votes necessary to win nomination as
the presidential candidate.
This was a problem that SBY faced when he was first elected. Because his
Democratic Party at that point only had a fraction of the vote, he aligned with
Golkar, then the biggest political party in the country, headed by Jusuf Kalla,
who became SBY’s vice president.
The question is whether anyone wants to align with Gerindra and Prabowo.
Although he is reported to have matured and mended his ways from the time he
allowed his troops to run wild in the riots, he is not trusted by the Jakarta
elites, who have belatedly come to the conclusion that they need to find a way
to stop him. Some observers say it could be too late, especially if his
organizational skills and financing bring Jokowi home as a strong winner.
The question is what party he could align with. The old guard of the
PDI-P, despite the fact that he was Megawati’s vice presidential candidate in
the most recent presidential race, doesn’t want to make common cause with
Gerindra again, especially since the party would like to see Megawati run for
the presidency again.
Golkar at this point is still backing Aburizal Bakrie despite the fact
that at least one brokerage in Jakarta released research saying his flagship
company, is headed for bankruptcy, which the Bakrie empire denied. Other rumors
say Bakrie himself suffered a recent stroke although the company denied that as
well.
In any case, once the gubernatorial race is concluded, the country’s
tangled political parties have two years to figure out the rebuilt political
landscape, whichever way tomorrow’s race goes. Political loyalty is in short
supply. Party leaders switch allegiances readily. A lot can happen between now
and 2014 and probably will.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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