Nice and clean: Gerindra Party presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto (front row, second right) shakes hands with Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chairman Abraham Samad after the verification of his assets in Jakarta on Wednesday, while Prabowoâs running mate, Hatta Rajasa (right), looks on
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Presidential frontrunner Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo vowed on Wednesday to help streamline business licenses and promote industrial development for plantation owners and mid-size businesses as he wooed voters in Palembang, South Sumatra.
The province, known for its rubber plantations, is the hometown of former coordinating economic minister Hatta Rajasa, who is the running mate of rival presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto.
'If elected, I will erase all costs and procedures related to the processing of business licenses,' said Jokowi before hundreds of small and medium-size business owners.
'I heard of the declining prices of rubber. I will no longer allow our farmers to be manipulated by foreign buyers. I will develop the downstream industry in your province in order to absorb your product, maintain prices and create employment,' he said.
Analysts have suggested that Jokowi should focus his campaign in Sumatra where, due to the 'Hatta factor', he is less popular than Prabowo.
Jokowi, on the other hand, fares better than Prabowo in the eastern part of Indonesia as his running mate, Jusuf Kalla, is from South Sulawesi.
Meanwhile, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) on Wednesday questioned Prabowo and Hatta regarding their wealth reports, one of the mandatory Election Law processes.
'We have no authority to announce the wealth figures until we submitted them to the General Elections Commission [KPU], which is scheduled to announce them publicly on July 1,' said KPK spokesman Johan Budi.
Prabowo reported a total wealth of Rp 1.5 trillion (US$125 million) and $7.5 million to the KPK in 2009, while Hatta submitted his wealth report in 2012 revealing his total wealth amounted to Rp 16 billion and $5,936.
Prabowo said there were a number of points the KPK needed to verify, including the purchase of land a couple of years ago.
'I was also surprised to find out that the KPK had checked my house in Hambalang, West Java, to verify my wealth,' Prabowo said.
Hatta, meanwhile, said that the KPK verified a number of cultural items he had owned since 1999 and how he had afforded them.
In a separate event, controversy buzzed on social media after an article on Prabowo's boosted electability turned out to be a hoax.
The article claimed that Gallup, a credible US survey agency often cited during the American elections, conducted a survey from June 10 to 21 that found Prabowo had over taken Jokowi with 52 percent of the votes.
The survey also showed that Prabowo would win the provinces of Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Lombok, Bali, East Nusa Tenggara, Papua and Maluku.
Only a short while after the figures were published, netizens found the article had been doctored from a report about the 2008 US presidential race between Barrack Obama and John McCain.
The survey's infographic simply had the names of Obama and McCain substituted with Prabowo and Jokowi, respectively.
The story was published by a user called Beritabisnis on CNN's citizen journalism forum, iReport.
CNN provided this forum as means of contributing in-the-field information or amateur journalism pieces, thus, bypassing the news corporation's editorial check.
CNN quickly pulled the post and placed an announcement reading: 'This iReport has been removed because it was flagged by the community and found to be in violation of the iReport community guidelines and terms of use.' (tjs)
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