YUDHOYONO'S SUCCESS TEAM TO CONTINUE WHITE CAMPAIGNS

Jakarta, June 22 (ANTARA) - The success team of the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono-Boediono (SBY-Boediono) ticket for the July presidential election will go ahead with white campaigns.

Although SBY-Boediono pair is being relentlessly attacked with negative and black campaigns, their success team will continue to stage white, civil, and polite campaigns in the run up to the election, a spokesman said.

"SBY-Boediono's national success team will continue to intensify white campaigns, including the familiarization of the duo's programs of action in the next five years," the team's chairman Anas Urbaningrum said here on Monday.

He said Yudhoyono's campaign team would not counter the attacks by the other pairs with black and negative campaigns because their objective was not just to win the election but more than that.

"We also want to win in a civil and democratic way, because to win the election through the white and polite campaigns is our main goal," Anas Urbaningrum said.

He admitted that because of the negative campaigns and black campaigns against Yudhoyono and Boediono in the past two weeks, a survey had shown the duo's popularity had dropped.

"We do not worry about negative campaigns. But the black campaigns seasoned with slander has had an effect," Urbaningrum said.

He explained that a negative campaign was a campaign that harped on a competitor's shortcomings and weaknesses, while a black campaign was marked by slanderous statements lacking a basis in facts.

"Examples of the content of a black campaign were allegations that Boediono's wife was a Catholic, SBY had a special contract with the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) to implement syariah law, and PKS cadres would be given the national education and religious affairs portfolios in the cabinet," Urbaningrum said.

He added the negative campaigns waged by SBY-Boedino's rivals were among others about poverty, unemployment, the fertilizer shortages problem, basic commodity prices, and increasing foreign debts although the facts were that the debts were declining.

To anticipate continuing negative and black campaigns in the next two weeks, Urbaningrum said, he would selectively give clarifications and explanations.