Campaign to start next Tuesday

The General Elections Commission (KPU) announced Wednesday it was moving the presidential election campaign schedule forward, from June 13 to June 2.

KPU member Andi Nurpati said the change was made after her office was determined to announce the eligibility of presidential and vice presidential candidates on May 30.

"We will hold a closed-door plenary session on May 29 to discuss the candidate verification process, and will announce the result of the meeting, along with the election number of each pair of candidates, on May 30," she said.

"Due to the early announcement of the candidates' eligibility, we will also move the campaign schedule forward," Nurpati added.

Previously, the KPU had set June 9 as its announcement date for the candidate verification process and their eligibility to run in the upcoming presidential election.

The election campaign will end on July 4 as previously scheduled, followed by a three-day cooling-off period.

The presidential election will take place on July 8. An election runoff is scheduled for Sept. 8 if none of the candidate ticket win more than 50 percent of votes.

Nurpati said the KPU and the candidates' campaign teams had already reached an agreement to move the election campaign schedule forward.

Another KPU member I Gusti Putu Artha had earlier said the campaign would run along two lines - mass party supporter rallies and public debates among rival candidates.

He said the debates, to be held at the KPU headquarters, would take place some time during the campaign period.

"The campaign will start with a mass media campaign on June 2 to June 12, and will then be followed by mass rallies on June 13 to July 4," Putu said, as quoted by kompas.com news portal.

The KPU is slated to host a meeting this Thursday with presidential and vice presidential candidate campaign teams to discuss the format, dates and moderators for the debates.