C

ampaign finance reports filed by both presidential tickets with the General Elections Commission (KPU) revealed that the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) ticket Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo-Jusuf Kalla outspent the Gerindra Party'€™s Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa.

The Prabowo-Hatta campaign team reported on Friday that it had spent Rp 166.5 billion (US$14.3 million) on the presidential campaign, while Jokowi-Kalla reported Rp 311.9 billion in spending.

Friday was the deadline for the two camps to submit their final campaign finance reports.

'€œThe financial report that we submitted today was the final campaign finance report of Prabowo-Hatta, which covers spending from June 3 to July 18,'€ Thomas Djiwandono, treasurer for the Prabowo-Hatta campaign, said after submitting the report at the KPU'€™s headquarters in Menteng, Central Jakarta.

During that period, the Prabowo-Hatta campaign raised Rp 166.5 billion in campaign contributions, leaving only Rp 1.6 million in the campaign'€™s bank account set up specifically for fundraising. Meanwhile, the Jokowi-Hatta camp raised Rp 312.3 billion, and left Rp 476.7 million in its coffers.

Political parties provided the largest share of donations to the Prabowo-Hatta campaign with Rp 101.7 billion. Other contributors were corporations, with Rp 56.6 billion, Prabowo and Hatta themselves with Rp 5 billion, individual donors with Rp 2.1 billion and groups and organizations with Rp 1 billion.

'€œThe Gerindra Party donated the most [compared to other parties],'€ Thomas said.

In terms of spending, Prabowo-Hatta spent the greatest proportion of its budget, Rp 88.2 billion, on media advertisements. The ticket also spent Rp 57.5 billion on campaign activities and Rp 13.1 billion on campaign paraphernalia.

The Jokowi-Kalla camp meanwhile spent Rp 151.2 billion on media advertisements.

In contrast to the Prabowo-Hatta campaign, funded largely by political parties and corporations, the Jokowi-Kalla campaign raised a substantial amount from individual donations, with more than 60,000 individuals contributing.

'€œThe amount from individual donors was Rp 42.7 billion, while corporations contributed Rp 63.1 billion,'€ Jokowi-Kalla campaign secretary Akbar Faizal said.

The Jokowi-Kalla campaign, however, had to return up to Rp 20 billion of those donations as many of the individuals failed to provide necessary documents required by the KPU.

'€œWe haven'€™t been able to verify all [donor information] and we are trying to do that,'€ Akbar said.

Jokowi-Kalla treasurer Didit Mehta Paryadi, meanwhile, said that the campaign could do nothing to prevent individuals from making contributions via bank transfer to Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), Bank Central Asia (BCA) or Bank Mandiri without proper documents, such as a letter of statement, identity card and taxpayer card.

'€œBut we already set up a call center to which people [who donated] could send a letter of statement,'€ he said.

Didit added that the campaign had also obtained a guarantee from the three banks that they would prepare documents required by the private audit firms (KAP) tasked to audit the campaign finance reports.

Responding to the final campaign finance reports, KPU legal bureau chief Nur Syarifah said that the commission would submit them to private audit firms in the next seven days. The firms will have 45 days to audit the reports.

'€œNow, the auditors will have to really analyze the reports and find whether there were any dubious donors or suspicious money,'€ she said.

She also said that auditors would verify the reports by doing a spot check and random sampling of individual and corporate donors.

'€œThey will not only work behind desks,'€ she said.