A beggar woman enjoys a free meat at Jakarta, Indonesia slum market. Whoever is elected as President will face a nation that is finding it difficult to feed and care for its poor. -- PHOTO: AP
JAKARTA - FOR the adoring residents of one Jakarta slum, little incentive is needed to support popular Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's re-election bid. But a few dollars are always welcome.
Paid to go for rallies
'IT'S a problem of the weakness of law enforcement. We also don't have parties or candidates that are deeply rooted in society, it's a legacy of the New Order,' Mr Widoyoko said.
This in spite of strides in combating corruption under the government of Dr Yudhoyono, who was elected by a landslide in 2004 on an anti-graft platform.
Indonesian presidential candiates and their policies
JAKARTA - INDONESIA holds presidential elections on July 8, the outcome of which will determine the pace of reform in South-east Asia's largest economy.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who is tipped to win a second term, is running against Vice-President Jusuf Kalla and former President Megawati Sukarnoputri.
As the world's largest Muslim-majority country prepares for its second direct presidential election on July 8, every candidate has pledged to fight the country's entrenched culture of corruption.
But on the ground and among the masses of Indonesia's 234 million people, it is an open secret that so-called 'money politics' is a part of every campaign.
A short walk from Jakarta's grand colonial era presidential palace, 55-year-old widow Hamida is a link in the chain of patronage between Indonesia's elite and the poor.
Stocky and with large white splotches of missing skin pigmentation running from her fingers, Ms Hamida is a member of Dr Yudhoyono's Democratic Party and is responsible for recruiting slum-dwellers like herself to rallies - for a price.
For Dr Yudhoyono's main rally at the national stadium on July 4, the payoff was a free T-shirt, a bus ride and 35,000 rupiah (S$5.10) in cash, she said. For recruiting 300 people, Ms Hamida got to keep 500,000 rupiah to herself.
Like nearly everyone interviewed in the slum, Ms Hamida says she is a strong supporter of SBY, as the president is known. But she does business with any party, including presidential rivals Megawati Sukarnoputri's Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and Vice-President Jusuf Kalla's Golkar Party.
'We've got (T-shirts) from Jusuf Kalla. We have yellow (Golkar) shirts, we have red PDI-P shirts. I do a mix,' she said.
'With me, if it's SBY, if it's Jusuf Kalla, yeah come along. If it's Mega, come along, whoever.' At legislative elections in April, Ms Hamida helped a slew of parties get numbers onto the streets. Bags of rice, oil and sugar were part of the payoff, locals said.
Paying the poor for shows of strength on the street, as well as votes, has been entrenched across Indonesia's political system since the mass rallies of ex-dictator Suharto's New Order regime, Indonesia Corruption Watch's Danang Widoyoko said. -- AFP
