Indra Harsaputra, Surabaya – The upcoming legislative election has already been tainted by money politics, fueled by the fierce competition among the hundreds of thousands of candidates.
Far ahead of the official political campaign period, scheduled to start March 9, both political parties and their candidates have used numerous tactics including advertisements, seminars, informal gatherings, billboards and road banners to campaign.
Parties and candidates with enough funds place ads on radio stations, in text messages and on billboards and banners across the province.
Kacung Maridjan, a political analyst of the Airlangga University in the city, said on Thursday that the fierce competition had a lot to do with the majority-vote system, which has replaced the listing system used in the last election. This has prompted candidates to forcefully deploy their financial power "to buy" as many votes as possible.
"Both the General Elections Commission and the Election Supervisory Committee and their structures in regions cannot do much to prevent candidates from using unauthorized media, or take action against candidates already campaigning because the 2008 election law is enforceable only during the political campaign period which is to begin next week," he told The Jakarta Post by telephone.
The province's electoral supervisory committee has filed complaints both to the police and the provincial attorney's office about a great number of legislative candidates who have allegedly given basic commodities and money to their prospective constituents.
After filing a report on Deputy House Speaker Muhaimin Iskandar to the district prosecutor's office in Sidoarjo last week, the electoral supervisory committee also filed a complaint with the municipal prosecutor's office on 43 councilors who allegedly embezzled Rp 1.9 billion (US$160,000) from the municipal council to be distributed to their constituents in the city.
"The huge funds were used to finance the communications allowance that should be used to be given to their constituents, but in reality, it is used to finance their political campaign," Kuntjara, chairman of the municipality's electoral supervisory committee, said.
Muhaimin, a legislative candi-date from the National Awakening Party (PKB), was reported because he and his running mate distributed basic commodities and money to an audience at an informal gathering early last month.
Chairman of the provincial electoral supervisory committee Sri Agung said his side was still investigating a number of money politics that allegedly involved legislative candidates in Lamongan, Bojo negoro and many other regencies.