Only days after Democratic Party chairman Anas Urbaningrum declared that he was ready to suffer capital punishment if he was proven guilty of corruption, a local party head claimed that she received money from Anas’ campaign team to swing her vote at the 2010 national congress in Bandung, West Java.

Ismiyati Saidi, the chairwoman of the Democratic Party’s Gorontalo branch, testified at the Jakarta Corruption Court on Monday that she and several other local party leaders received Rp 15 million (US$1,635) in return for their voting in favor of Anas, who won the race after beating House of Representatives Speaker Marzuki Alie and Youth and Sports Minister Andi Mallarangeng.

“Members of the campaign team requested us to sign an agreement stating that local party leaders who voted for him [Anas] would be given priority in local elections,” Ismiyati told the court at the trial of graft defendant M. Nazaruddin as quoted by kompas.com.

She later said that the first “payment” of money was distributed by members of Anas’ campaign team to local party leaders at a briefing at the Sultan Hotel in Central Jakarta, just a few days before the start of the Bandung congress.

Ismiyati claimed that it was members of Anas’ campaign team who distributed the money, later ordering them to vote for their candidate.

Ismiyati said officials from the campaign team later gave her $2,000 during the congress’ first round and another $5,000 in the second round.

Besides the cash, Ismiyati said that she also received a BlackBerry smartphone with Anas’ cellular phone number stored in its contacts list.

Nazaruddin has alleged that Anas spent $6.9 million to win the party’s chairmanship.

According to Nazaruddin, the approximately $5 million that was spent by Anas in the race was raised from rigging the contract for the construction of the sports complex in Hambalang, West Java.

Nazaruddin is a defendant in the Halambang graft case.

Anas posted on his Twitter feed late last week that he was ready to be hanged or face a firing squad at the National Monument (Monas) square if it was proved that he was corrupt.

“If I am [proven] corrupt in the athletes’ village and Hambalang graft cases, even if it’s only for Rp 1, I am willing to be shot dead or hanged at Monas. But what about the people who make these slanderous accusations?” Anas said on his feed, posted from his official Twitter account on Friday.

Anas’ comments caused a stir in the blogosphere with pundits and politics buffs making mock of the statement. The statement was controversial not only because it was posted on the popular micro-blogging site but also because Anas had until recently spent most of his time on Twitter promoting traditional Indonesian food.

Later in the hearing, Nazaruddin challenged Anas to prove his innocence by taking the pocong oath (literally an oath to God, according to Muslim customary law).

“I am ready to take the pocong oath. I am ready to testify that Anas accepted money from the Hambalang project,” Nazarrudin said.

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