War of words whips up election tension

I Wayan Juniartha , The Jakarta Post , Denpasar | Thu, 06/26/2008 10:39 AM | Surfing Bali

As election day nears, the gubernatorial candidates have turned up the volume on their rhetoric in the hope of winning the swinging votes of Balinese youths and rural villagers.

Gone are the days of long speeches, detailed development programs, two-way dialogue and utopian dreams. People now want a short-term cure for all their social and financial ailments. And the candidates have been more than happy to present themselves as the magical doctors the island had been awaiting for so long.

"At this point of the election process, it will be futile to woo the public with a detailed development agenda or a long-term objective to transform Bali into an ideal, prosperous island," said Baskara, an aide to candidate Made Mangku Pastika.

A campaign flyer listing the programs of candidate pair Winasa-Alit Putera obscures a traffic sign in Denpasar. (JP/I Wayan Juniartha)

Made Mangku Pastika and his running mate AA Ngr Puspayoga are from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), the largest political group on the island. The other candidates are Cokorda Budi Suryawan (CBS) with his running mate Nyoman Gde Suwetha and I Gde Winasa with his running mate IGB Alit Putera. CBS-Suwetha is backed by the Golkar party and the Bali's People Coalition (KRB), an alliance of several minor parties, while Winasa-Alit Putera is supported by the Bali Awakening Coalition (KKB), an alliance of more than ten minor parties.

The official campaign period of June 22 to July 5 usually subjects potential voters to an onslaught of rhetoric and spin. They are granted amnesty from July 5 until election day, July 9, during which time candidates are prohibited from campaigning.

"In this campaign period, effective language is the language of jargon and rhetoric. A short sentence that represents our strongest program or our candidate's most attractive side will be enough. All we have to do is keep reciting that simple sentence over and over again in front of our supporters," Baskara said.

Mandara, a Sanskrit word for great, is Mangku Pastika-Puspayoga's ultimate mantra. The candidates use Mandara as an acronym that stands for Maju (advance), Aman (safe), Damai (peaceful) and Sejahtera (prosperous).

The word is printed on each and every campaign tool produced by Mangku Pastika-Puspayoga's camp, from mugs and wristwatches to billboards and banners. Both candidates never forget to slip the word in every speech they give.

However, the master of this type of campaigning is Winasa-Alit Putera's camp. They have succeeded in producing rhetoric that is both catchy and inflammatory.

Banners with messages like "Pilih Yang Berkumis" (Vote for the candidates with mustaches) are hung across town -- describing the prominently Winasa and Alit Putera. "Bekumis" is also an acronym standing for Berjuang Kurangi Kemiskinan (in the struggle to mitigate poverty).

The camp also manipulated popular television ads for motorcycle lubricants into intriguing banners. The banners read "Anda pakai Top One juga, bukan?" (you use Top One too, don't you?), using the slogan of the popular machine-oil brand. The official election number of the pair is, obviously, 1.

In response to growing criticism over the pair's populist program, particularly on the free education and free health service programs, Winasa-Alit Putera's camp produced banners with the dismissive message "Tidak peduli apa kata orang, Kita butuh bebas biaya pendidikan dan kesehatan" (To hell with other people's opinion, we need free education and health services).

Yet the camp apparently crossed the line of political correctness when they erected banners that Mangku Pastika-Puspayoga's camp considered to be a blanketed attack toward its candidates.

The banners, placed in strategic places around Denpasar, display the line "Pilih Nomor Satu, Jangan Pilih Yang Pasti Kalah" (Vote for Number 1, do not vote for the candidates who shall certainly lose).

Mangku Pastika-Puspayoga's camp was offended by the two underlined words pasti kalah (certainly lose). The words bear a striking similarity with Pastika, the name of its gubernatorial candidate.

Angry supporters mulled over retaliatory responses to the banners, which ranged from tearing down the offensive banners to installing signs with counter-messages that equated the word Winasa with Binasa (doomed). Eventually, the camp came to its senses and brought the matter to the Election Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu).

The heated political tension, particularly among the grassroots supporters of the candidates, was further inflamed by a decision by the Winasa-Alit Putera camp to pull out of the joint agreement on outdoor campaigning signed last week by all candidates, the Denpasar administration, the Denpasar General Election Commission and the Denpasar Election Supervisory Committee.

The agreement stated that candidates would not organize any large-scale, outdoor campaigns in central Denpasar. The candidates also agreed to limit their campaign props to 43 sites designated by the city administration.

"The agreement has one primary objective -- to prevent possible clashes between supporters of competing candidates. Such a clash is likely to happen if the candidates hold a large-scale, outdoor campaign in the city's central area. The campaign would surely attract a large number of supporters," the head of the Denpasar General Election Commission, Ray Misno said.

On Monday, Winasa-Alit Putera's camp officially declared that it had pulled out of the agreement. Its supporters took no time in installing hundreds of banners, placards and billboards in every strategic place in the capital city, which for years had been the traditional stronghold of Puspayoga.

"This is a worrisome development. When the candidates focus their campaign on rhetoric, inflammatory or otherwise, political tension will rise significantly. Then, it will only be a matter of time before their supporters translate that rhetoric into actual, violent conflict," noted scholar Ketut Sumarta warned.

The simplicity of rhetoric, its passionate and emotional nature, and its ability to demean rival candidates, Sumarta pointed out, appealed directly to the worst side of the supporters' characters: their fanatical side.

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