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Although Johannes Martio had previously been impressed by the slick Obama-style campaigning of a certain presidential candidate, a recent television advertisement featuring the vice president championing national pride has changed his mind.

The 30-year-old employee of a state-owned company now says that the country needs a firm decision maker — a visionary leader like Jusuf Kalla.

It may just be an ad, but with his clear and attractive message, Kalla has made Johannes and many other ordinary folk like him reconsider the name they will tick come July 8.

Kalla’s message has been seen as honest, original and pragmatic. His ad, which outline his thoughts on the nation’s current state of dependency and emphasize the country’s wealth of natural and human resources, has stolen many people’s hearts.

Interspersed with images of the vice president making bold decisions during his tenure in the current administration, his words have stirred people’s latent nationalism and increased public support for Indonesia to stand on its own two feet.

It addressed national pride over the Ambalat dispute with Malaysia, espoused self-sufficiency in rice production in the face of the global economic crisis and criticized the reliance on foreign contractors in building the country’s airports — for which he has urged the use of domestic resources.

Faster, Better

Employing a catchy campaign slogan, “The faster, the better,” Kalla’s campaign team aims to convince voters to let the candidate who boldly makes strong, quick decisions to continue to govern the nation.

The campaign team for the Kalla-Wiranto ticket is by far the largest of all the presidential candidates, comprising about 800 members compared to just 100 to 300 for the other two.

Kalla’s running mate, Gen. (ret.) Wiranto, is the chairman of the People’s Conscience Party (Hanura) and was a presidential candidate himself in 2004 when he ran for Kalla’s Golkar Party.

Aside from merging the campaign teams of both political vehicles, Golkar and Hanura, the Kalla-Wiranto pairing has also enlisted the support of independent groups, such as working professionals, former military officials and volunteer groups. A clutch of retired Armed Forces generals, calling itself the “Garuda Team,” was even established to throw its weight behind the pair’s aspirations.

The campaign has highlighted the accomplishments of both Kalla and Wiranto, and their service to the country. While Wiranto has been accused of human rights violations while head of the military during its occupation of the then Indonesian province of East Timor, Kalla has offset that with his role in bringing peace to conflict-ridden provinces around the country.

As a minister in the cabinet of former President Megawati Sukarnoputri and as the current vice president, Kalla has been credited with helping build peace in Poso in Central Sulawesi, Ambon in Maluku and Aceh.

“We want to tell people about that because even as vice president, many people see Jusuf Kalla as the real president, working on settling the nation’s problems,” said Air Marshal (ret.) Basri Sidehabi, the head of Garuda Team.

External Support, Internal Rift

Teams of supporters have been organized to spread the campaign’s message, such as the Communal Work Volunteers, which counts small-scale entrepreneurs, market vendors and market traders among its members, and the Nusantara Coalition, which was formed to promote the Kalla-Wiranto ticket through door-to-door campaigning across the country.

But while Kalla’s image-making and self-promotion have boosted his profile in the lead-up to July’s presidential poll, internal rifts within Golkar have threatened to hamstring his run for the State Palace.

Cracks started to appear even before April’s legislative elections, and later publicly erupted when Kalla surprisingly declared his bid for the presidency, contrary to expectations that Golkar’s coalition with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party would be maintained .

Several party elites regretted the decision, saying Kalla’s aspirations were “unrealistic,” while others attempted to expedite the party’s national congress so they could hold Kalla responsible for the party’s poor showing in the legislative polls. A senior Golkar leader, Muladi, has even suggested that Kalla resign from the party chairmanship if he failed to force a runoff round in the presidential election. However, several party leaders who had appeared to be openly opposed to the Kalla-Wiranto ticket have now been given positions in the campaign team’s leadership, and many party members have fallen into line to support their chairman.

Three cabinet ministers have also joined the campaign team, which is chaired by Industry Minister Fahmi Idris.

Running for a Runoff

For now, the campaign team is focused on ensuring that Kalla and Wiranto make it to the second round of the presidential race.

Yuddy Chrisnandi, a campaign team member, said they wanted to emphasize the leadership qualities a nation’s president should possess.

“If the central government cannot make fast decisions, the regional governments cannot start working,” Yuddy said.

“We see that many things have run well in the government, but we want things to run faster and better, and those characteristics are possessed by Kalla and Wiranto.”

If elected, Kalla promises an economic growth of between 8 percent and 9 percent each year by 2011, outshining Yudhoyono’s comparatively conservative commitment to a 7 percent annual growth by 2014.

Johan Silalahi, who chairs the campaign’s consultancy group, the Johan Foundation, said that it was not difficult to improve Kalla’s popularity because of his record of achievements over the past five years in office.

“We are repositioning JK as a figure who has been overlooked as his achievements were claimed by others,” he said, adding that Kalla had been “too low profile” in the past to boast publicly about his achievements.

Through a massive ad campaign, the foundation is attempting to boost Kalla’s image with high-profile testimonies about his accomplishments. Among these are glowing remarks from former Economic Minister Kwik Kian Gie, former Muhammadiyah chairman Syafii Maarif and respected journalist Budiarto Shambazy.

Johan stressed that the campaign strategy for Kalla did not include resorting to mudslinging or attacking the other presidential candidates.

“Attacking others will never boost the positive image of any candidate. I can assure you that JK-Wiranto will never use this kind of strategy,” he said. “We opt to do it politely, but it must touch on the core problems faced by the people.”

Johan refuses to say that his foundation was “hired” as a political consultant to improve Kalla’s public image, preferring to say that his organization “offers sympathy to Kalla.”

He said he received no money from Kalla and only sought direct access to him, a proposal that was approved by the vice president.

The foundation used donations to produce the campaign ads, which were created by known political consultant and ad producer Ipang Wahid.

“There is nothing difficult in making campaign ads for Kalla,” Ipang said separately. “He has everything to show the public. Testimonial ads work best for this purpose.”

Both Johan and Ipang supported Yudhoyono in 2004, and Ipang produced campaign ads — often controversial talk-pieces — for the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) for the April polls.

A senior researcher from the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI), Burhanuddin Muhtadi, praised Kalla’s ads, saying that they were engaging and that they clearly outlined the presidential hopeful’s nationalist profile.

However, he also said that while Kalla’s campaign model might prove interesting for the educated populace, it had less appeal for the 61 percent majority of voters who only attended elementary school.

“Kalla’s advertisements are too wordy. It will be hard to approach the lower-middle class people,” Burhanuddin said.

Ticking Time Bomb

But, as the July 8 poll creeps ever closer, the ticking time bomb that is Wiranto’s tainted image remains the main worry for the campaign team, which will have to work harder to allay the fears of human rights groups.

US-based Human Rights Watch said recently it was concerned about Wiranto being elected vice president, as he had been implicated in a number of human rights abuse cases, including allegedly supporting and deliberately not taking action against the widespread violence in 1998 after the fall of President Suharto’s New Order regime.

“If he is elected, the country will descend back to the New Order era — possibly even worse,” warned Andreas Harsono, the watchdog’s coordinator for Indonesia and East Timor.

“It is very likely that the law will be manipulated to eliminate those who are critical of the government. With his strong ties to the military, it is possible that the military will be used once again as a political instrument.”

Harsono compared Kalla and Wiranto’s potential leadership to that of Thailand’s former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

“Their policies would be popular to the masses, with the economy going strong, but underneath, they are merely fighting to enrich themselves,” he said.