F

ive candidate pairs contesting the upcoming North Sumatra gubernatorial election revealed their missions and visions in a special plenary meeting at the provincial legislative council (DPRD) as the campaign season officially kicked off on Monday.

Each candidate pair was given 30 minutes to project their visions to councilors before trying to lure voters across the province.

All candidate pairs will campaign until March 3 to win the hearts of the people ahead of the March 7 ballot.

Gus Irawan Pasaribu and his running mate, Soekirman, got the first chance to explain their programs as they promised to eradicate poverty in the province.

Gus said that the province’s poverty rate, 10.67 percent of the total population of 15 million, was ironic in light of the fact that North Sumatra had abundant natural resources.

“I am optimistic that I can take North Sumatra to a better stage. The poverty rate must be suppressed to below 5 percent, while small enterprises have to be given more chances to develop their businesses,” Gus said.

Candidate pair Effendi Simbolon and Jumiran Abdi pledged that they would maintain a high commitment to eradicating corruption if they won the election.

Corruption among local administrations in the province remains a concern. Former North Sumatra governor Syamsul Arifin was detained by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in 2010 for alleged embezzlement of Rp 99 billion (US$10 million) allocated for Langkat regency to pay for his personal expenses.

Syamsul was convicted by the Jakarta Corruption Court on graft charges and sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison in August 2011.

Chairuman Harahap and his running mate Fadly Nurzal promised that they would speed up the development of villages across the province, saying that so far, the government had only focused on developing big cities.

The fourth candidate pair, Amri Tambunan and RE Nainggolan Amri, said that they were willing to allocate 20 percent of the regional budget to improve the education system in the province.

Amri Tambunan also pointed out that there were currently 870 villages that had no access to electricity, a fact he blamed on a lack of coordination between the provincial administration and regencies or municipalities.

Interim governor Gatot Pujo Nugroho and his running mate, T. Erry Nuradi, focused more on their success during their tenure. Meanwhile, in West Java, the Depok branch of the Election Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu) claimed that its team had found irregularities in the final voters’ list (DPT).

Panwaslu Depok head Sutarno said that there were 12,077 double entries for the upcoming West Java gubernatorial election slated for Feb. 24. The committee recorded 1,219,354 voters for Depok.

“We are worried that some parties would take advantage of the irregularities. Besides, this case will potentially spark conflict after the election has finished,” Sutarno said.

Impi Khani Bajuri, a member of the Depok Regional General Elections Commission (KPUD), raised doubts over the findings, saying that such report was “rubbish”.

“It is such a fantastic number. If there are some irregularities like double names or double IDs, it might be just hundreds [not thousands],” Impi said, adding that he, however, would check the report.

Five gubernatorial candidates in West Java are entering the final week of the campaign before the cooling-off period starts on Feb. 20.