Lenny Tristia Tambun – As the Jakarta elections draws closer, the campaign of gubernatorial candidate Hidayat Nur Wahid and his running mate Didik J. Rachbini has been hit by allegations of fraud.
Hidayat, who is backed by the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), is one of six candidates looking to contest the post of Jakarta governor on July 11. PKS, however, faces allegations that a staff member on Hidayat's campaign team is deceiving vendors who have been contracted to supply campaign paraphernalia for the candidate.
The person, identified only as M.S., is alleged to have defrauded seven vendors in the procurement of campaign paraphernalia. Hidayat's campaign manager Triwisaksana insisted that no one with the initials M.S. was in his campaign team.
"I would like to stress that M.S. is not part of the campaign team," he said in Jakarta on Saturday. He said the complaints lodged by the seven vendors had hurt the PKS and that the party had asked one of its legislators, Nasrullah, who is in charge of overseeing the process to procure campaign paraphernalia, to file a police report on M.S.
"We regret that this deception took place, especially since the tender for campaign paraphernalia procurement involves a huge amount of money," Triwisaksana said. "I know M.S., but he is not a member of the campaign team. Therefore, his actions are fully his own responsibility as an individual. He plays no role in the campaign team."
Triwisaksana added that all procurement and transactions with third parties always involved Nasrullah and that Nasrullah claimed he did not know anything about M.S.'s actions. "M.S. acted alone. He forged signatures, used false stamps and even used the wrong PKS office address," he said.
Nasrullah said several parties continued to insist that M.S. was part of Hidayat's campaign team even after the party explained the irregularities they found in the working contracts signed between MS and the vendors.
"Earlier, two other businessmen contacted me to clarify the contract they signed with M.S. They were relieved after I explained that I never placed the order because they realized they were in danger of falling victims to a scam," Nasrullah said.
He said he had filed a report on M.S. with the Jakarta Police on Thursday after receiving reports from seven other vendors who provided campaign paraphernalia for Hidayat and Didik.
The official campaign period for the Jakarta election runs from June 25 to July 7.