1,200 police deployed to secure inauguration of S. Tangerang mayor

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Wed, 04/20/2011 10:00 AM | Archipelago

Up to 1,200 police personnel, mostly from South Jakarta Police office, have been deployed to safeguard the inauguration of the newly elected South Tangerang mayor and deputy mayor today, a police official says.

“We are also sending water cannons and barracuda vehicles as extra precautions [to safeguard] the ceremony,” South Jakarta Police chief Sr. Comr. Gatot Edi Purnomo said Wednesday, as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

He added that the police mobile brigade (brimob) would be assigned to guard several key posts during the ceremony. Banten Governor Ratu Atut Chosiah is scheduled to lead the ceremony, with dozens of local officials slated to attend.

Airin Rachmi Diany and Benyamin Davni won the second election by garnering 188,893 votes, or 46.4 percent, winning over the three other candidate pairs including the pair of Arsyid and comedian Andre Taulani. It wasn’t an easy victory for the Airin and Benyamin pair since the results of the initial election were rejected by the Judicial Commission after allegations of misconduct by the winning pair.

S. Tangerang Elections Supervisory Committee to quiz Andre Taulany

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Mon, 01/17/2011 10:03 AM | Jakarta

South Tangerang Elections Supervisory Committee is scheduled to question Andre Taulany, a deputy mayor candidate in the recent South Tangerang election, for holding an illegal campaign on Dec 29, 2010.

“We've received reports on an activity organized by Andre Taulany. We suspect it was an unauthorized campaign and mass mobilization of civil servants,” committee chairman Sahrono Budihardjo said as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

The alleged campaign was reportedly held at Tangerang city hall.

Sahrono said Andre would be asked to clarify the allegations.

A non-governmental organization, represented by Puji Imam Zarkasih, sent video footage and pictures of an Opera Van Java TV program performance in Tangerang. (Andre is one of the stars in the show).

In the videos and pictures, Andre Taulany is seen with Tangerang Regent Ismet Iskandar and other Tangerang leaders, but South Tangerang officials have not been seen on tape.

“We will examine the evidence, to see if any South Tangerang civil servants were involved,” Sartono said.

Andre, partnered up with Arsyid, was on the losing side when they ran in the South Tangerang mayor election last year.

However, in December the Constitutional Court struck down the initial victory of Airin Rachmi Diany and Benyamin Davnie in the city’s first mayoral election, finding that the pair violated the law by mobilizing civil servants during their campaign.

The court ordered South Tangerang to repeat the election in February this year.

Minister asked to appoint acting mayor for South Tangerang

Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post, Tangerang | Thu, 01/13/2011 10:20 PM | Archipelago

South Tangerang residents have asked Home Minister Gamawan Fauzi to directly appoint an official from the ministry office to replace acting mayor Eutik Suarta, an official at the Banten provincial administration, who will vacate his post on Jan. 24.

“We proposed this to the minister as part of efforts to maintain neutrality in the mayoral election re-run,” former chairman of the South Tangerang Formation Presidium Zarkasih Noor said in a discussion Thursday.

He said he had sent a letter requesting the minister to select a substitute for the acting mayor from the ministry office.

“We want the mayoral election re-run to go smoothly and honestly,” he said.

Agil Novebrianto, a student activist, concurred.

He said it had been proven that the current acting mayor Eutik Suarta failed to show his neutrality in the election process.

The recent South Tangerang election result was annulled by the Constitution Court, which then ordered a re-run next month.

Tangerang City project to displace 1,500 elementary students

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 01/04/2011 11:52 AM | Jakarta

The Tangerang administration will relocate 1,500 students from two favorite elementary schools to make way for the construction of the planned Tangerang City super block in Cikokol, Banten.

The students from the two elementary schools, SD 4 and SD 5 Sukasari Tangerang, will be moved to a building formerly occupied by the public works agency situated 2 kilometers away.

“It is up to the mayor [Wahidin Halim] when the relocation will begin,” Zainuddin, the head of the Tangerang Municipal Education Agency, told tempointeraktif.com on Tuesday.

Zainuddin added that the developers of the super block had prepared compensation for the elementary schools in the form of land and a new building.

However, he said, the administration had preferred for the students move to the used building since it was in the Cikokol education and office zone, near many other private and public schools and universities.

S. Tangerang to have poll re-run on Feb. 27

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 12/21/2010 9:49 AM | Jakarta

The South Tangerang Elections Commission has set Feb. 27 next year as the date for the re-run of the mayor elections, after the results of the first effort were thrown out by the Constitutional Court.

The ballots from the re-run will be counted from Mar. 4 to 22.

The commission said no campaigning of any kind would be allowed ahead of the re-run. The candidates, it said, could run social programs, but did not elaborate, Metrotvnews.com reported.

All candidate tickets will appear on the ballots in the re-run. The tickets are Airin Rachmy Diany-Benyamin Davnie, Arsid-Andre Taulani, Yayat Sudrajat-Narodom Sukarno, and Rhodiyah Najibhah-Sulaiman Yasin.

The Constitutional Court ordered the election be repeated after finding that Airin Rachmy Diany and Benyamin Davnie's victory had benefited from vote rigging.