Putri Prameshwari & Antara – Several celebrities running in Thursday's legislative elections have garnered an impressive number of votes so far, with some leading seasoned politicians in the provisional tallies.
Facing a credibility crisis due to the corruption and sex scandals involving several members of the House of Representatives, some political parties contesting the legislative elections recruited celebrities to attract voters, but provisional tallies suggest that those vote-getters may soon unseat their senior counterparts.
According to the Web site of the General Elections Commission, or KPU, popular comedian Mandra, who ran for the Islam-based National Mandate Party, or PAN, was leading the tabulation in the East Jakarta electoral district on Sunday with 411 votes.
Mandra, who is best known for his role in the television drama "Si Doel Anak Sekolahan," is PAN's number one legislative candidate for the House, and was running against seasoned politician Agung Laksono of the Golkar Party, who is also the current House speaker.
In West Java Province, actress Rieke Dyah Pitaloka, a candidate for the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, or PDI-P, has outdone the head of the party's Advisory Board, Taufik Kiemas, who is also the husband of PDI-P chairwoman and presidential candidate Megawati Sukarnoputri, state-owned Antara news agency reported.
Rieke, who shot to fame playing the character Oneng on the wildly popular TV sitcom "Bajaj Bajuri," has so far received 427 votes, almost twice as many as Kiemas with 261.
Other actors leading the tallies in several West Java areas include Primus Yustisio in Subang, Majalengka and Sumedang, and Nurul Arifin in Karawang and Purwakarta, Antara reported.
Primus is a candidate from PAN who previously ran for district head in Subang, while Nurul is running for the Golkar Party. As of Saturday evening, Nurul, who has been actively involved in politics since 2004, had gained more than 16 percent of the votes.
Liputan6.com reported that actress Wanda Hamidah from PAN had reached 30 percent of the votes in South Jakarta.
Meanwhile, Marisa Haque Fawzi from the United Development Party, or PPP, Teuku Firmansyah from the National Awakening Party, or PKB, and Rachel Maryam from the Great Indonesia Movement Party, or Gerindra, are also sitting on top of their regions' vote counts.
Marisa's husband, Ahmad Zulfikar Fawzi, who goes by the stage name Ikang Fawzi, is currently leading the vote count for PAN in Banten Province with 171 votes.
Nathania Regina, whose claim to fame is being declared Indonesia's youngest legislative candidate by the Indonesian Museum of Records, or MURI, said that she had not yet checked the vote calculations.
"I'm not in Indonesia right now," she said in a text message. "I haven't been able to keep track of the vote count." At only 21 years of age, Nathania became the country's youngest legislative candidate, running for the PKB in Riau Islands Province.
There were 61 celebrities running in this year's legislative polls. If they were all to win election, they would make up 11 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives.