Independent candidates submit documents to poll body

Teammates Faisal Basri and Biem Benjamin became the first independent aspirant pair to submit
the required documents of supporters’ signatures and identification card copies to the Jakarta General Election Commission (KPU) to register for the upcoming gubernatorial election.

Dozens of supporters sang and danced as they marched with Faisal and Biem to the KPU document collection point at the National Library on Jl. Medan Merdeka Selatan in Central Jakarta on Saturday.

The pair handed in their first batch of 430,000 signatures and ID copies, planning to submit the second and the last batch on Sunday.

The registration period began on Wednesday and will proceed through Sunday.

The Faisal-Biem team claimed to have collected a total of 547,359 support documents, but decided to submit only 430,000, citing a lack of resources necessary to appropriately list and classify them.

In a short speech before his supporters, Faisal said the document represented the voice of the citizens.

“This is a petition signed by people demanding a more dignified city,” said Faisal, a noted University of Indonesia economist.

In order to be able to participate in the election, independent hopefuls are required to gather the signatures and copies of ID cards from 4 percent of Jakarta residents, or 407,340 people in the capital.

Jakarta KPU chairman Juri Ardiantoro said Faisal-Biem was the first independent pair to successfully submit the documents according to the requirements.

“A number of other hopefuls have come, but none completed the requirements. Faisal-Biem was the first to officially submit their documents,” Juri said.

Two pairs of new independent aspirants arrived on Wednesday to register with the poll body registration office but were declined due to incomplete documents.

Other independent hopefuls, including retired Rear Marshal Prayitno Ramelan and businessman Teddy Suratmadji, plan to submit documents accounting for 500,000 signatures on Sunday.

The election commission requires that supporting documents must be compiled based on subdistricts and attached with three copies of each document.

The poll-body will begin a two-week long verification process on Monday with officials deployed to check the signatures and the ID copies with their respective owners in 267 sub districts.

Juri said the first three days of the two-week period would be used by subdistrict election committee members to recheck the documents to make sure there were no double entries.

“The following nine days will be used by them to personally meet the signature owners and verify their support,” he said.

In the last two days of the period, the subdistrict committees would write reports on the verification process before submitting them to the KPU, he said.

In the past, independent tickets were dismissed as having no chance in local elections, which were usually dominated by wealthy and powerful political parties.