Bekasi braces for mayoral election

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Wed, 09/26/2007 3:21 PM  |  Jakarta

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Bekasi Elections Commission said Monday about 200,000 eligible voters had yet to register for the city's mayoral election in January.

Most of the unregistered voters live in upper-class housing areas and are not on the roll since they work in Jakarta in the daytime.

""We can't reach them since they are home only at night,"" said commission member Tubagus Hendy Irawan as quoted by Tempointeraktif news portal.

The commission recorded 1.2 million registered voters as of Monday; however, that figure would be approximately 1.4 mission if all residents eligible to vote were registered.

The commission has yet to decide whether to extend the registration period which ends on Friday.

The January vote is to be Bekasi's first direct mayoral election. The term of incumbent mayor, Akhmad Zurfaih, will end in March.

Political parties have begun to groom government officials, city councillors and businessmen as they gear up for the ballot.

It is believed that the incumbent will seek a second term, although no party has yet announced that they will back him.

The Prosperous Justice Party alone has nominated a candidate -- Ahmad Syaikhu, currently deputy speaker of the City Council. The party says it will remain open to coalition-building.

The administration has allocated Rp 22 billion for the election.

Bekasi acts as a suburban buffer zone for Jakarta. Hundreds of thousands who work in the capital reside here. It is also the location of a critical repository for city waste, Bantar Gebang,

While undeveloped land is becoming scarce, the population of Bekasi continues to grow by 5 percent annually, a significant boon for real estate developers. Migration from Jakarta and other regions of Java accounts for more than half of this growth.

Much of the population is concentrated in vast one-off housing developments.

Despite the suburb's special relationship with the capital, infrastructure problems plague Bekasi.

Damage to roads and highways stems from an inability to cope with the soaring number of vehicles that drive through the area.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved.