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Jakarta Post

Campaigns go negative as Election Day draws near

As voters get ready to elect a governor on July 11, campaigns have appeared to go negative, producing a host of negative advertisements and campaign materials seen throughout the city

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Fri, July 6, 2012

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Campaigns go negative as Election Day draws near

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s voters get ready to elect a governor on July 11, campaigns have appeared to go negative, producing a host of negative advertisements and campaign materials seen throughout the city.

A 2-meter banner reading “Beware of a Secular Candidate” depicting Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, the running mate of Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, has been on display in Pancoran, South Jakarta, since early this week.

The banner appeared days after Ahok, the only non-Muslim candidate in the race, told reporters that Jakarta should be run on the basis of “constitutional law, instead of a religious law”.

There was also a report that the website of the Jokowi-Ahok campaign, www.jakartabaru.co, had been hacked on Wednesday evening.

The culprit, who was identified only as “Anonymous Indonesia”, an apparent reference to the global hacker community, put up a black screen replacing the site’s content, the report said.

A representative of the Jokowi-Ahok campaign denied that their site was down.

“Reports circulating on BlackBerry Messenger and other social media, which were based on the news published by online media site detik.com, are misleading,” Riffa Jufiasari, the campaign team’s head of media relations, told The Jakarta Post in a text message on Thursday.

The report by detik.com referred to a restaurant website, jakartabaru.com, which has almost the same name as the campaign’s site, she said.

Another negative banner apparently undermined the credibility of incumbent front-runner Fauzi Bowo.

The banner, seen at Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta, placed an image of Fauzi, a Democratic Party politician, side by side with an image of Muhammad Nazaruddin, the infamous corruption convict, expelled lawmaker and the former Democratic Party treasurer.

Supporters of South Sumatra Governor Alex Noerdin’s campaign, meanwhile, have faced violence when in the field.

A campaign volunteer was stabbed in the back by a member of an unidentified group of men when he tried to pull down Alex’s promotional material in Pesanggrahan, South Jakarta, last week.

Alex said that one of his competitors was responsible.

“The incident proves that there has been foul play in the election,” Alex said on Wednesday. “If a candidate has acted unfairly today, can you imagine what he will do if he is elected?”

Alex, who reported the assault to the Jakarta Police last week, urged officers to act swiftly to bring the perpetrators to justice. “This incident shows that the police need to work harder to secure the election.”

Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto told reporters on Thursday that the case remained under investigation.

Separately, the Independent Elections Monitoring Committee (KIPP) chairman Wahyu Dinata called on candidates to avoid negative campaigning, including displaying negative banners. “Such messages may prompt hostility, even clashes, in society,” Wahyu said on Thursday.

The committee also reported that some candidates had disparaged their competitors in public forums.

“Instead of explaining their programs to the general public in their campaign speeches, they prefer to discredit a specific candidate during their campaign oratories,” Wahyu added.

Dahlia Umar, the chairwoman of the Jakarta office of the General Elections Commission (KPU Jakarta), said that the commission might disqualify candidates who were proven to have conducted negative campaigns, especially those who raised taboo topics such as religious or ethnic differences.

“For other candidates, disqualification may mean ‘shock therapy’, meaning those usually conduct such negative campaigns will think twice before doing them again in the future,” Dah-lia told participants at a discussion on Thursday. (cor)/(aml)/(sat)

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