D

espite having pledged to participate in the upcoming regional elections, a number of politicians got cold feet on the final day of the candidate registration period, abandoning their bids out of fear of a humiliating defeat.

In Surabaya, East Java, deputy mayoral candidate Haries Poerwoko withdrew his candidacy at the last minute of the second and final round of candidate registrations on Monday, leaving his running mate Dhimam Abror Djuraid, a former journalist, ineligible to participate in the city'€™s mayoral election.

Haries, a businessman and chairman of the local chapter of youth organization Pemuda Pancasila, said he had decided to withdraw his candidacy amid widespread reports that he had been endorsed as a dummy candidate to challenge the reelection bid of popular Surabaya Mayor Tri '€œRisma'€ Rismaharini.

'€œMy mother phoned me and told me to withdraw [...] I decided to withdraw for the sake of my self-esteem,'€ Haries told reporters in Surabaya on Tuesday.

The Surabaya mayoral election is scheduled to be held on Dec. 9, as are 268 other polls across the country. The election, however, may well be postponed, as only one ticket, namely Risma and running mate Wisnu Sakti Buana, endorsed by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), had registered by the end of the extended registration period on Monday.

According to General Elections Commission (KPU) Regulation No. 12/2015, a Regional Elections Commission (KPUD) can extend the registration period once if they have fewer than two tickets running by the end of the official registration period. If after that no further candidate pairs register, the election must be postponed until February 2017.

On Monday afternoon, Dhimam and Haries, supported by the Democratic Party (PD) and the National Mandate Party (PAN), visited the Surabaya KPUD'€™s headquarters to register their candidacy. Haries, however, surprisingly left Dhimam in the registration room and did not return to sign the candidacy registration documents before the KPUD'€™s document verification deadline at midnight.

Apart from Surabaya, elections in six regions '€” Tasikmalaya regency in West Java, Blitar and Pacitan regencies in East Java, Samarinda municipality in East Kalimantan, Mataram municipality in West Nusa Tenggara and North Timor Tengah regency in East Nusa Tenggara '€” also look set to be postponed after Monday went by with only one ticket registered for each respective election.

In Mataram, candidate pair Rosiady Sayuti and Kasdiono canceled their plan to participate in the local election, citing a lack of confidence in the local election organizers. '€œWe were ready to register, but when it became apparent that the election was not going to be credible, we decided to bow out,'€ the pair'€™s campaign team chairman Mahaly Fikri told reporters on Monday.

In Tasikmalaya, Gerindra'€™s local branch chief Ujang Abdul Haq said he had visited the local KPUD'€™s headquarters on Monday, but only to submit a letter explaining the withdrawal of Tasikmalaya Regional Legislative Council (DPRD) Speaker Ruhimat, whose candidacy was supported by Gerindra, from the regional head election.

Separately in Sigi regency, Central Sulawesi, incumbent regent Aswadin Randalembah has been asked to drop his re-election bid after a team of doctors running the KPUD-sanctioned medical examinations declared him disabled, and thus not qualified to compete in the upcoming election.

Arya Dipa in Bandung and Ruslan Sangadji in Palu contributed to the article.