Jakarta – Hundreds of supporters of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the United Development Party (PPP) brawled on the streets of Yogyakarta on Saturday – the final day of the officially designated campaign period preceding the April 9 legislative elections.
"There was news that PDI-P supporters destroyed PPP paraphernalia in Kauman [village]," Yogyakarta Police chief Adj. Sr. Cmr. Slamet Santoso on Saturday, according to Indonesian news portal tempo.co. "So it became heated between the two groups and they met at the Ngaben [bus] terminal."
The groups clashed twice at the intersection in front of the bus terminal, just a kilometer from Jalan Malioboro, the city's major commercial thoroughfare, popular with tourists. No serious injuries were documented, but police officers closed off nearby streets and local businesses closed their shops around the area.
The group of PDI-P supporters, clad in red shirts, were heading home from a campaign event when they were attacked by PPP supporters wearing black, according to local PDI-P official Chang Wendryanto.
The attackers were later identified as members of the Ka'bah Youth Movement, a youth wing of the PPP.
The crowd dispersed briefly, but rumors began to spread that a member of the PDI-P contingent had been killed in the attack, prompting the altercation to continue, with both sides hurling stones and each other before hundred of police offers arrived on the scene to break up the fight for good.
Chang, who said he helped calm down the PDI-P supporters, confirmed that no one was killed. "That was only a rumor," he told Indonesian portal tribunnews.com. "I dispatched some PDI-P officers to check for the [alleged] victim, to find out which hospital he had been admitted to. And the result was negative: there was no dead victim."
He said the fight had been instigated purposefully by rabble-rousers. "We've gotten information that some people [wearing PDI-P colors] instigated the melee by destroying PPP paraphernalia," Chang said.
PPP secretary-general M. Romahurmuziy blamed the PDI-P for the incident, saying that the party's supporters had intentionally provoked their PPP counterparts by riding in a convoy through a village near Ngaben, where a local PPP headquarters is located.
"Five major parties in Yogyakarta, including the PPP, PAN [the National Mandate Party] and the PDI-P, have an agreement that supporters of each party should not convoy through neighborhoods which are bases of other parties," Romahurmuziy told the Jakarta Globe on Sunday. "But the PDI-P breached this agreement. PDI-P supporters drove 30 motorbikes, whose exhaust pipes had been modified to create more noises, through the PPP village base.
PDI-P secretary-general Eriko Sotarduga urged police to investigate the incident, warning that violence ahead of elections could intimidate voters. "If there is no peace, the number of golput [people who do not vote] will grow higher," Eriko said. "We want police to investigate this incident impartially."
The PDI-P – the party of popular Jakarta governor Joko Widodo, is slated to come out ahead in the elections, according to recent polls. The PPP, a small Islamic party lead by Religious Affairs Minister Suryadarma Ali, has for the past five years been aligned with the Democratic Party as part of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's ruling coalition.
The nation entered the pre-election "cooling-down period" – during which political activities must stop – on Sunday, signifying the end of the campaign period which began on March 16.
Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/pdi-p-ppp-supporters-brawl-yogyakarta-campaigns-wind/