Printing the posters and paying for them to be put up across the city had come at considerable cost. He is vying for the regional top post with running mate Taufik Hidayat.

As an independent candidate with a relatively small budget, Komarhaen is depending heavily on his popularity as an environmental activist.

However, he said he would not be lax in campaigning in areas where he was not known.

“Natar is indeed not the base of my main supporters as there are no inhabited state forests in the region. But we need to make ourselves known here so that voters will vote for us,” he said.

“I cannot afford to hold meetings to gather voters, nor can I campaign by asphalting roads, renovating irrigation facilities or distributing staple foods, like other candidates do,” he said.

Seven candidate tickets have registered to contest the election, which some are calling the most fiercely competed regional election in recent history.

In the past, regency elections in the province have been marred by riots and brawls between rival candidate supporters. One of the suspected reasons the election is so hotly contested this year, is that candidates are planning to use the race to gain fame and sponsorship that would equip them to contest the gubernatorial race in 2013.

This is in part due to the fact that most of the 700,000 eligible voters in the regency election will also vote in the provincial election.

Some candidates have already declared their intention to run in the gubernatorial race, reports
have said.

Among them are Wendy Melfa (now vice regent), Ryco Menoza (son of Lampung Governor Sjachroedin Z.P.) and Zainudin Hasan (younger brother of Forestry Ministry Zulkifli Hasan).

Wendy Melfa and running mate Antoni Imam are nominated by the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), the Golkar Party, the Reform Star Party (PBR), the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the Indonesian National Populist Fortress Party (PNBKI).

Zainudin Hasan and running mate veteran rock singer Ikang Fawzy are backed by the National Mandate Party (PAN), the United Development Party (PPP) and the National Democratic Party.

Ryco Menoza and running mate Eki Setiyanto are backed by the Democratic Party and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

“Since the reform era, the political scene in South Lampung has been hotter than in other regions,” political observer Syarief Makhya from the University of Lampung said.

One of the reasons for this, he said, was the region’s large population and the second was the fact that those wishing to run for Lampung governor often first ran in the South Lampung regency election to gain fame.

He said that even though the law on regional elections had been revised so that  a governor could only be elected by a provincial legislative council, the South Lampung election was still considered a crucial stepping stone to governor as a well-known candidate who had experience leading a regency would be favored by the council.

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