Two pop stars and a former model who was once married to a Malaysian prince are among the many Indonesian celebrities who added a splash of glamor to Wednesday’s general elections by running for office.
Singers Krisdayanti and Riefian Fajarsyah (higher often called Ifan) and former model and actress Manohara Odelia Pinot are competing against nearly 8,000 candidates from 16 national political parties for the 575 seats up for grabs within the House of Representatives (DPR).
In addition to the national parliament, around 192 million Indonesians can even vote for his or her next president and vice chairman, in addition to members of local and regional parliaments, on the identical day.
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Ifan, 36, of the pop band Seventeen, said he decided to run for public office after losing his wife and a number of other bandmates to the tsunami last yr. The band was acting on the beach on December 22 when the Sunda Strait tsunami hit coastal areas, killing about 600 people.
He will run in West Kalimantan province on the ticket of the National Awakening Party running for the DPR seat.
In a video post on Instagram on February 27, Ifan appealed for support from voters within the constituency, announcing that he would fight for his or her aspirations in parliament.
“If you all allow me, we can present our case to the national parliament,” said Iran, who’s running for a second time after an unsuccessful bid in 2014.
Pop diva Krisdayanti, 43, who’s running as a legislative candidate for the Indonesian Democratic Struggle Party in East Java, said she knows it won’t be easy to run for public office although she is a well known figure within the entertainment industry.
“I consider it is time for me to serve people beyond singing. I made a decision to serve the people of the constituency where I used to be born because they were my biggest fans and largest supporters,” Krisdayanti said in a press interview.
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Manohara, 27, who represents the Nasdem party in one other constituency in East Java, hopes to advertise environmental and health issues.
Manohara said Compass newspaper that she left the world of acting and modeling 4 years ago and was actively involved in various institutions involved in the event of a clean and sustainable environment.
She noted that many Indonesians still prefer to burn garbage somewhat than throw it away. “It’s not good since the smoke produced is harmful to the environment,” she said.
In 2009, she made headlines after escaping from her then-husband, Tengku Muhammad Fakhry Petra, in Singapore amid allegations of physical abuse. The prince is the younger brother of Sultan Muhammad V, the monarch of Kelanta, who abdicated as king of Malaysia in January. His abdication got here weeks after news reports said he had married former Russian beauty queen Oksana Voyevodina.
Celebrity candidates are highly wanted by Indonesian political parties because they attract votes. A political party must win at the least 4 percent of the vote to qualify for a seat within the DPR.
At least 91 DPR candidates on the General Election Commission’s everlasting candidate list come from the entertainment world and include models, musicians, dangdut singers and movie stars.
The National Democratic Party tops the list with 37 celebrity candidates, while the Indonesian Solidarity Party has just one, Giring Ganesha, lead singer of the band Nidji.
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Some of the well-known candidates are artists who’ve just entered politics, while others have been involved within the political arena for a very long time and are running for re-election as DPR members.
Some stars even modified their party affiliation on this election.
Indonesian political observer Pangi Syarwi Chaniago attributed this trend to the party’s difficulty find well-qualified candidates. Therefore, political parties prefer to chop corners and find candidates who’re well-known to the general public, even in the event that they shouldn’t have the crucial expertise.
Pangi noted that this trend isn’t latest as every five years, parties have relied on star power during general elections.
“Political parties… at the moment are selling the names of public figures to achieve voter status,” he said, referring to the 4 percent threshold.
Pangi found it disturbing that political parties had ignored the correct recruitment process, which involved choosing candidates based on their level of competence.
“The party should recruit candidates on the premise of [their] ideology, honesty, opportunities, loyalty, reliability, and not only recruitment [based] on popularity and logistics,” he added.
This article appeared within the print edition of the South China Morning Post as: Meet the celebrity candidates
