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Businesses funded Jokowi campaign

Incumbent presidential ticket Joko “Jokowi” Widodo-Ma’ruf Amin made no contribution to their election campaign as they received a massive flow of public funding, mainly from the business community

Ghina Ghaliya (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Fri, May 3, 2019

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Businesses funded Jokowi campaign

Incumbent presidential ticket Joko “Jokowi” Widodo-Ma’ruf Amin made no contribution to their election campaign as they received a massive flow of public funding, mainly from the business community.

In a final report submitted to the General Elections Commission (KPU) on Thursday, the campaign recorded that it had collected a total of Rp 606 billion (US$42.5 million) in campaign funding, 45 percent of which came from community groups and individuals, mostly businesspeople.

The campaign said that on top of that 40 companies donated a total of Rp 254 billion to fund the incumbent’s reelection bid.

Jokowi-Ma’ruf campaign treasurer Wahyu Sakti Trenggono said Jokowi and Ma’ruf did not have to spend their own money because of the large volume of public donations.

“The donors are all mainly businesspeople […] They were very satisfied with Jokowi’s policy [in the past four years], and they are looking forward to Jokowi continuing [in office],” Wahyu said.

He said the donors were in a variety of business sectors, such as property, fisheries and food and beverages, and from many different provinces, although mainly they were from Jakarta and East Java.

“We held fundraising events in Jakarta and Surabaya. One donor paid Rp 2 billion for a painting at auction, while the actual price was only Rp 500 million. That’s how we worked,” he said.

Wahyu said Jokowi’s family, which has run the President’s furniture business since he took up his administrative posts, also contributed to the team through their company, PT Rakabu Sejahtera, but the amount was not significant.

The report from challenger ticket Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Uno shows a different type of campaign financing.

As the campaign received fewer public donations, Prabowo and Sandiaga shouldered the major part of the funding themselves.

The Prabowo-Sandiaga team reported that it had collected Rp 213.2 billion for the campaign, 91 percent of which came from Prabowo and Sandiaga themselves with a total of Rp 192.6 billion.

Prabowo-Sandiaga campaign treasurer Thomas Djiwandono said nearly 60 percent of the funding came from Sandiaga as the team did not get as much funding from the business community as Jokowi-Ma’ruf.

“Sandiaga spent more [than Prabowo]. Previously the composition was 80:20, but in the end it almost balanced because Prabowo increased his contribution,” Thomas said.

The team recorded Rp 9.2 billion in revenue from individual donors, Rp 1 billion from community groups and Rp. 2.9 billion from private companies. “Maybe there were one or two individual business donors but it didn’t mean much to revenue. We included them in our revenue from community groups,” Thomas said.

The former Jakarta deputy governor amassed the funding for the ticket’s campaign by selling his shares in PT Saratoga Investama Sedaya (Saratoga), an investment firm that controls major publicly listed companies in mining — coal miner PT Adaro Energy and gold and copper miner PT Merdeka Copper Gold, as well as a coal-fired power plant in Gorontalo, and the Awal Bros hospital chain.

Jokowi and Prabowo, who also ran against each other in the 2014 presidential race, spent more this year than five years ago.

Back in 2014, Jokowi who ran with Golkar Party politician Jusuf Kalla spent Rp 312.4 billion, about a half of his spending this year.

Prabowo, who was running with National Mandate Party (PAN) politician Hatta Rajasa spent Rp 166.6 billion, also less than what he spent this year.

Two of Jokowi’s supporting parties — the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the Golkar Party — collected the largest campaign funding among all the political parties in the 2019 general election, with total spending of Rp 345 billion and Rp 307 billion, respectively.

Prabowo’s supporting parties--the Democratic Party, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and Gerindra Party, were the third, fourth and fifth biggest-spending parties, with a total campaign funding reported of Rp 190 billion Rp 150 billion and Rp 135 billion respectively.

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