T

hree members of a folk and blues acoustic band, Nosstress, wrote a song to express their hopes for the new leader of Bali.

Dedicated to the new governor elected on Wednesday, the three young men ' Nyoman Angga, Nyoman Gunawarma a.k.a Kupit and Cokorda Bagus Pemayun, uploaded a video of the song describing their concerns over the island's condition.

Three days before the election, they acoustically sang the untitled song, recorded by Hadhi Kusuma and Ida Bagus Wibawa, around Legian and Kuta.

'Bali aku tinggal sebentar ya, aku mau ke Jogjakarta, aku mau nyanyi seperti biasanya. Bali aku pergi sebentar ya, pergi dari pantaimu yang katanya indah yang disekelilingnya berdiri hotel megah, wah.'

('Bali, I'll leave you for a while. I'm going to Yogyakarta to sing, like usual. Bali, I'll leave you for a while, leaving your beach that people say is beautiful, surrounded by fancy hotels.')

'Esok ku kembali semoga beton tak tumbuh lebih subur daripada pepohonan.'

('I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully concrete will not have become more fertile than the trees.')

These are excerpts from the simple but critical song lyrics.

'It took three days to record the song, make a video clip and do the editing, with the very minimum sound quality,' said Nyoman Angga, the band's vocalist and guitarist.

Angga hoped the band could create a video with campaign banners scattered all over the island as the background, but they were unsuccessful as the banners had been removed one week before the election. For this reason, they chose Kuta as the backdrop, stating the area was the symbol of incessant physical construction.

'We want to raise awareness that development is out of control, leaving very limited space and making it very crowded,' he said, giving examples of traffic jams and the shrinking green area in southern Bali.

The video received an enthusiastic response from local youngsters. They liked the simple but critical and straightforward lyrics, as they also shared similar concerns over the island's future.

The toll road and underpass, two big projects that are expected to ease traffic congestion, might not be a long-term solution due to the tremendous growth in vehicles. At the same time, the management of spatial planning and public transportation has yet to be prioritized.

Angga exercised his voting rights on Wednesday, saying he did not want to waste the once-in-five year opportunity, although many people considered it as 'a vote for the best among the worst'.

Some issues promoted by the candidates are equitable development between the rich, crowded south Bali and the other neglected areas, as well as infrastructure development and public transportation policies.

Prof I Wayan Gede Supartha, researcher with the economic faculty of Udayana University, who analyzed the moratorium on accommodation construction, said Bali was facing chaotic spatial planning due to weak implementation of bylaws.

He recommended a selected moratorium on hotel development, because some regencies in Bali still needed more accommodation, while others were overcrowded.

'A selected moratorium should be implemented until 2015, considering the changing infrastructure in Bali, including the planned airport in north Bali.'