The 39-year-old resident of Lenteng Agung area, South Jakarta, who works for a public hospital in Bogor, said she wanted to get home to cast her vote for the Jakarta gubernatorial election.
Therefore, she said she would get off at Lenteng Agung Station, and walk to a polling booth where she had been registered as an eligible voter.
Mariana is just one of more than 7.2 million Jakarta residents, who are eligible for choosing their preferable governor and vice governor for the next fire-year period by casting their votes at 13,034 polling stations.
She refused informing the Jakarta gubernatorial candidate pair that she would vote inside the polling booth.
The Incumbent governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama and vice governor Djarot Syaiful Hidayat compete against former education minister Anis Baswedan and businessman Sandiaga Uno as his running mate in the runoff election.
The two pairs who qualified to compete in the second round are Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok)-Djarot Saiful Hidayat, who won 42.99 percent of the votes, and Anies Baswedan-Sandiaga (Sandi) Uno, with 39.95 percent of the votes. The pair of Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono and Sylviana Murni failed to qualify for the second round, as they got 17.07 percent of the votes.
The second round of the election is held after none of the candidates could have received more than 50 percent of the votes in the first round.
Few days before the election day, several agencies have released the results of their survey polls. Some pollsters have hinted at the Anies-Sandi pair excelling over Ahok-Djarot.
Indonesian Survey Circle, led by Denny JA, for instance, stated that the Anies-Sandi pair had received 51.4 percent of the respondent votes, while the Ahok-Djarot pair got 42.7 percent of the votes.
Some 5.9 percent of the respondents remained undecided.
According to the Indicators Survey Institute, the Anies-Sandi pair received 48.2 percent of the votes, and the Ahok-Djarot pair got 47.4 percent of the votes.
The results of the survey conducted by Saiful Mujani Research & Consulting indicated that the Anies-Sandi pair got 47.9 percent of the votes, while Ahok-Djarot received 46.9 percent.
Regarding this election, Chief of the National Defense Forces (TNI) General Gatot Nurmantyo said residents must feel secure and tranquil when they go to the polling stations to cast their ballots and return home.
"The right to vote must be guaranteed by the constitution and the state must also be involved," he said in his directives before 24 thousand police and military personnel in Ancol, North Jakarta, on Tuesday.
In ensuring a peaceful and fair election process, Vice President Jusuf Kalla has expressed optimism that Jakartas residents living around the polling stations would likely witness the counting process.
"If you are a voter at a polling station, you could visit the station to witness the counting process together," he told a press conference at his office in Jakarta on Tuesday.
As a result of President Joko Widodos declaration that April 19 was a holiday in Jakarta to encourage residents to exercise their voting rights, the capital citys main roads looked deserted as a result of decreasing number of vehicle.
On the meantime, the Basuki-Djarot and Anis-Sandi pairs have cast their votes in their respective polling booths along with local residents.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2017
