Camelia Pasandaran & Markus Junianto Sihaloho – As preparations for next month's elections intensify, several legislative candidates admitted on Thursday that they were reaching too deep into their pockets to finance their campaigns.

Television star-turned-politician Raslina Rasyidin said she couldn't rely solely on her popularity anymore.

"I've been getting requests from mosques to sponsor their programs, which includes uniforms for some religious groups and building mosques," said Raslina, a legislative candidate from the National Mandate Party, or PAN. "If a request costs Rp 2 million [$166], for example, multiply that by a hundred mosques and that's just an amount I can't afford."

Nurul Arifin, a Golkar Party candidate, said she was aware of the costs of running a successful campaign. "I have to put witnesses in every polling booth in my election area," she said. "That means more than 3,000 poll watchers that I have to pay."

"And that's just for witnesses," Nurul said, adding that she will pay each witness Rp 100,000. "The whole campaign is a different story. You have to make sure you have the finances when and where you need them to be."

Anas Urbaningrum, a senior member of the Democratic Party, encountered a much more worrisome funding problem. People approached him and asked they be paid in exchange for their votes. "It's always the voters who start to talk about money," he said.

"So it's up to the candidate whether he wants to grant the offer or not. I choose to avoid such requests," Anas said, adding that voters needed to be educated about how sacred their right to vote is.

Meanwhile, a group that has been monitoring electoral procedures said that the country's democracy had developed into a "transaction" between voters and legislative candidates.

Sebastian Salang, chairman of the nongovernmental organization Society Care Forum for Indonesian Parliament, or Formappi, said the practice of "money politics" began when parties sold legislative candidacies to people who had the money to buy the nomination.

"These candidates spend huge amounts of money just to be nominated for the highest ranks by political parties," Sebastian said, speaking at an event titled "Next Indonesian Parliament: Quality or Popularity," which was organized by the Indonesian Journalist Caucus, or Kawan.

"But they were disappointed after the Constitutional Court [in December] changed the electoral system into a majority vote," he added.

According to Sebastian, candidates who have enough money are the ones most likely to get a party nomination, although celebrities could receive a nomination because their popularity was seen as giving them an edge in the public's eye.

"If a candidate is not popular, the option is either you have lots of money to buy the nomination from the party and then buy the hearts of voters, or you have rich entrepreneurs who can support your campaign," Sebastian said.

He said a candidate's "winnability" came down to either his popularity or his financial status. But that meant putting into office legislators who did not have the citizens' welfare in mind. "They will produce laws that are in favor of rich people only," he said. "They won't have the quality to produce good legislation. It's now the parties' responsibility to educate their legislative candidates."