Blind candidate set to win council seat

Slamet Susanto ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Yogyakarta   |  Mon, 04/20/2009 1:32 PM  |  Headlines

Shying away from putting up big banners and posters along the main streets to woo voters, 40-year-old Tur Haryanta, a blind legislative candidate from the National Mandate Party (PAN), opted to go door-to-door to directly meet with voters in their homes.

Although the party only listed him seventh out of eight candidates in the party's list for the electoral district of Bantul, Yogyakarta, he kept fighting for his seat, aware that at the end of the day, it would be the people who would decide.

And Tur's efforts paid off, with some 3,200 out of 15,920 registered voters choosing the country's only blind candidate as their representative in the local council during the April 9 elections.

"Thank God. It's just a matter of time now to wait for the official results, before I'm inaugurated as a council member," Tur, popularly known as Gus Tur, said Sunday.

Without a team to run his campaign activities, the blind man relied on his only son, Gilang Chandra, 13, as his guide to go meet with voters.

Every day during the campaign period, his son would take him around the district on a motorcycle to meet people.

"Wherever I am, I will always remember the people. However, I never make promises I can't keep. But I will do my utmost to accomplish what the people need. It seems the people believe I will fight for their interests," Gus Tur said.

His election victory is perhaps not surprising, considering he has been helping people in his district for the last 10 years through an NGO called Networking for the People (Japera) that he leads.

The organization has fought for years to raise the community's prosperity level.

With no campaign team, banners or posters, Gus Tur managed to keep his spending very low compared to other candidates.

He only spent around Rp 50 million (US$4,500), while many other candidates splashed out up to Rp 500 million for their campaigns.

"The spending was mostly for food for my supporters. Every time I met with them, I bought snacks or cookies," he said.

Gus Tur, who has been blind since the age of 11 when he was struck in the face by a big bar, has a law degree from Widya Mataram University and a notary's diploma from Gajah Mada University in Yogyakarta.

"I almost went insane when I realized I'd be blind the rest of my life. However, I decided to continue my life as I believe God must have other plans for me," said Gus Tur, who was also a successful onion farmer.

He added he could quickly identify the condition of a plant, and every time he touched the ground or plants, he could feel what they needed.

"It seems I have the ability to feel if plants need more water or fertilizer, or if they're being attacked by disease," he said.

"If God take my eyes, then I will be given other blessings. So I never regret anything that has happened."

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