Bali Tourism News

Candidates promise to make culture a priority

June 2nd, 2008

Irawaty Wardany, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar

Candidates for the upcoming gubernatorial election pledged to preserve Bali’s cultural heritage to a gathering of the island’s artists and writers on Saturday.

The gathering took place in Denpasar’s Werddhi Budaya Art Center during the opening ceremony of a joint art exhibition. Titled “Consciousness Entity” the exhibition, showing until June 7, set to remind the island’s politicians about the aspirations of the Balinese people. The exhibition committee gave each candidate a chance to discuss their cultural policies.

Cokorda Budi Suryawan, a candidate endorsed by the Golkar party and the Bali People Coalition (KRB), an umbrella of several minor parties, pledged to establish the Bali Arts Council (DKD) if elected, which would be tasked with designing a cultural development policy.

“The Council will comprise respected artists and public figures and its programs will be financed with the provincial budget,” he said.

Made Mangku Pastika, a candidate supported by the island’s largest political power, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), told the audience the cultural policy and development should not be managed in a top-down bureaucratic style.

“We will provide an atmosphere, in which the provincial administration will extend various assistance to the artists without compromising the artists’ aesthetic integrity and their freedom of expression,” he said.

The third candidate, I Gde Winasa, who is backed up by a coalition of minor parties known as The Bali Awakening Coalition (KKB), didn’t attend the event. He was represented by his running mate, IGB Alit Putra, who conveyed his concern about the poor financial remuneration many Balinese artists received, before performing a song titled Cedil Bingung (Confused Cedil) to the amazement of the audience.

The candidates each wrote down their promises on a piece of canvas before signing them.

Head of the Bali General Election Commission (KPUD) AA Oka Wisnumurti praised the event as a testament of the transperancy of the the island’s political process.

“This event proves that here in Bali, each group of constituents can invite candidates, ask them to speak about their agenda and ask them to make a promise, a written one for that matter, to fulfill that agenda,” he said.

Wayan Suardika, an arts writer and one of the exhibition’s organizers, said she believed the event would connect politicians with artists.

“There is always a hope to strengthen artists’ relationship with the government, even though without support from the government we are still able to move forward and get noticed by the international world,” he said.

A member of the exhibit committee, Wayan Redika, said there had been a gap between artists and politicians, which the exhibition had sought to close.

“We, the artists, emphasize more on our room for creation and we never realize that it has built some kind of gap between arts and politics,” he said.

The exhibition features the works of 42 artists, including several celebrated artists, such as Wianta, Gunarsa, Djirna, Erawan and Mandra.

Source: The Jakarta Post

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