Carlos Paath – Winning public office in Indonesia is a costly proposition, and the longer-than-usual campaign period ahead of the 2014 legislative election will require successful candidates to spend big, according to seasoned politicians.

"The internal and external competition and a longer campaign period of one year compared to the 2009 election, which only took a few months, will force legislative candidates to dig deeper into their pockets," Bambang Soesatyo, the Golkar Party's deputy treasurer, said on Tuesday as quoted by Antaranews.com.

Bambang said that serious legislative candidates, or their financial supporters, needed to prepare at least Rp 1 billion for their campaign. That money, he explained, would be required for several trips per month to visit the constituencies they were contesting during internal party pre-selection, followed by a more intensive, and hence expensive, campaign proper from January to April 2014.

Candidates should stay in their constituencies during the three months before the legislative election takes place, Bambang added.

Money is needed for logistics such as T-shirts, banners, calendars, advertisements in local media, and activities designed to build the candidates' profile. Politicians also curry favor with voters by repairing mosques, churches, village roads and other public facilities, he said.

Martin Hutabarat, a legislator from the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), said he spent about Rp 1.5 billion for the 2009 legislative election.

He said that much of the money went on paying witnesses to scrutinize vote counting at every polling station. Witnesses are paid about Rp 50,000 to Rp 100,000 each, he said, adding Gerindra would employ more than a million of them in 2014.