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Candidates race to impress Papua, Java
Jokowi addressed on Monday evening thousands of supporters at Aimas Convention Center in Sorong, West Papua, only days after Sandiaga visited the city and made promises to improve the welfare of Papuans during his campaign.
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Busy day: Volunteers in East Manggarai regency, East Nusa Tenggara, sort ballots on March 26 at the local elections office before distributing them to polling stations. (The Jakarta Post/Markus Makur)
W
ith two weeks until voting day, the incumbent President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo-Ma’ruf Amin ticket and rival Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Uno ticket are chasing after each other in their campaign trails and visiting each other’s strongholds.
Jokowi addressed on Monday evening thousands of supporters at Aimas Convention Center in Sorong, West Papua, only days after Sandiaga visited the city and made promises to improve the welfare of Papuans during his campaign. The incumbent, who went straight from Jayapura to Sorong, shared in front of the supporters that on the way from the airport to the convention center, his car was repeatedly surrounded by people who wanted to see him. So he stopped six times to greet them, he said.
“Is there any other country in the world where the President is okay with being stopped? There’s none,” Jokowi said, receiving loud cheers from his supporters. “I myself feel fine with it, to get out of the car and shake people’s hands, and return to the car afterwards.”
Before the crowds, Jokowi promised that the infrastructure projects in the province would be improved to boost connectivity as well as to spur economic growth in the region. He went on to promote his programs, including employment and free university card programs. In the 2014 presidential election, Jokowi won by a margin of 35.26 percent against Prabowo in West Papua. The incumbent also won the majority of the vote, with 72.49 percent, in a landslide victory in Papua, defeating Prabowo’s 27.51 percent.
Prabowo himself visited Merauke, Papua, for a campaign last week, during which he promised that he and Sandiaga would give more attention to the development of eastern Indonesia.
On Monday, Sandiaga once again promoted the pair’s campaign programs with a focus on improving the economy and addressing unemployment in a campaign event before supporters in Palopo, South Sulawesi.
The businessman also followed Prabowo’s campaign trail to Makassar, a city in which the former army general held his first mass campaign rally, where Sandiaga engaged with millennials in the Young Entrepreneur Summit (YES) at Celebes Convention Center.
