Following claims of cheating, Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama has defended his supporters grouped in Teman Ahok (Friends of Ahok), saying the volunteers have fairly and properly collected photocopies of voters’ identity cards.
akarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama has defended his supporters grouped in Teman Ahok (Friends of Ahok), saying the volunteers have fairly and properly collected photocopies of voters’ identity cards.
Ahok’s statement follows claims from former Teman Ahok members who had said that copies of IDs had been collected recklessly.
“Teman Ahok has a good system in place. All the people that have submitted copies of their IDs will receive a notification message from Teman Ahok,” the governor said at City Hall on Thursday.
“If you did not submit a copy of your ID card for me but get a notification saying you did, you would know about it and you could complain to Teman Ahok,” he added.
Former Teman Ahok members Paulus Romindi, Richard Sukarno, Dody Hendaryadi, Kusnun Nurun and Dhella Noviyanti claimed the support group had duplicated photocopies to reach the target of one million copies set by Ahok.
The copies of ID cards are required by law for Ahok to run as an independent gubernatorial candidate. Although prospective candidates for next year’s election in Jakarta are only required to submit at least 532,000 ID copies, Ahok has demanded Teman Ahok collect at least one million copies to be sure that Jakartans want him reelected as governor.
Teman Ahok said on Thursday that the five people that made the claims had been dismissed from the group because of doubts over the validity of ID copies they had provided. Teman Ahok accused them of secretly working for opposing political groups to tarnish Teman Ahok’s credibility.
“Those members were caught cheating in the notification process of the ID card collection; therefore they have been dismissed by Teman Ahok,” Ahok said. (bbn)
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