W

hen it comes to politics, Jakarta seems to never experience a downtime. Even though gubernatorial elections are a year away and the general elections three years away, the capital is already flooded with banners, stickers and billboards bearing the faces of familiar and not so familiar politicians and their campaign slogans.

This provides a brisk trade for enterprising businesspeople.

Feskome Anwar Imka, who runs a workshop producing campaign paraphernalia, said business was good.

“It’s very promising because we normally receive large orders, and not only for banners, but also
T-shirts, stickers, calendars and many more items,” he said.

However, as dealing with would-be politicians and their henchmen could be tricky, Feskome insists his customers pay at least 75 percent in advance. “We don’t take orders if clients don’t pay the minimum payment,” he said.

He added that although orders from Jakarta had declined recently, he was busy processing orders from other regions.

Feskome said that because of transportation costs, he charged politicians outside Jakarta more.

Another workshop in Kebon Kacang, Central Jakarta, is buzzing with orders from political parties looking to make an early head start in campaigning for the 2012 gubernatorial election.

“We’ve received orders for campaign paraphernalia from Gerindra [Great Indonesia Movement Party] and the PKB [National Awakening Party], among other parties,” workshop owner Kristina Ismi said, adding that some of the orders had to be subcontracted out to another workshop in Depok, West Java.

She said other parties were still negotiating prices for their orders.

“We’re still negotiating on the price for campaign supplies such as banners, clocks and T-shirts,” Kristina said.

Political candidates may find an advantage in getting their campaign off to an early start.

Irfan Gani, the secretary-general of Democratic Party’s Jakarta branch, which will likely nominate branch chairman Nachrowi Ramli for governor in 2012, said banners and flags were indispensable to bring candidates into the spotlight.

“We use banners because we think we need to work extra hard to raise his profile as the incumbent is better known,” Irfan said.

He said the timing to set up banners now was also perfect as it coincided with the celebrations for the 484th anniversary of the city’s founding.

Irfan said all banners were printed locally, but did not disclose costs.

“I can say that it was quite expensive because we have to cover all regions in Jakarta,” he said.

Several politicians have already announced their interest in running for governor in 2012.

Incumbent Governor Fauzi Bowo has not officially announced his bid, but he is almost certain to seek re-election. Challenging Fauzi would be Nachrowi, chairman of the Jakarta branch of the Golkar Party Priya Ramadhani and lawmaker Azis Syamsudin.

Other politicians include former National Mandate Party (PAN) politician and University of Indonesia economist Faisal Basri.

Potential candidates include Firman Abadi, the chairman of the fan club of rock band Slank, former tourism minister Marzuki Usman and former sport and youth minister Adhyaksa Dault.