BandungBergerak.id – The election campaign period has not been started. However, political billboards have already flooded in every place in Bandung. The form varies from poster, and banner, to billboard. Not only on the main roads, the politicians are also competing to hook the attention of Gen Z by displaying their photos (don't forget with their sweetest smiles on them) in the campus area.

Not really far from the north side of Technology Institute Bandung (ITB), on a pedestrian of Tamansari Street, political banners are spreading out. As if they are competing with each other. Too chaotic and unpleasant to look at.

In the pedestrian of Buah Batu Street, right in front of the Institute of Indonesian Arts and Culture Bandung, many legislative candidate poster sheets are stuck on the tree trunks which stand in line. Too reckless and too absurd.

The exact view is easy to find on other campuses.

Salma Nur Fauziyah, a student of Widyatama University, wondered how those political billboards are always showing up in college areas even though the rules forbid that. She captured a billboard in front of the post-graduate campus before it was demolished on Saturday, October 28th 2023.

"Besides violating the existing rules, the placement of these billboards or banners is very distracting," she said.

Akmal Firmansyah had the same opinion. He captured a poster of a legislative candidate across UIN Sunan Gunung Djati precisely in the Cibiru area, Bandung.

"That poster is placed on an electric pole along with other unimportant visual information." Said Akmal.

Normally, student votes are being contested. According to data from the General Elections Commission (KPU) of Bandung City, there are 408.862 young voters aged 17-24 years old who will be participating in the upcoming 2024 election. A huge significant number!

Threaten The Safety of the Community

The messy placement of advertising boards, including the political ones, is not only a matter of visual pollution. It is also related to violation of the rules, the elimination of regional income potential, and the deprivation of public rights to decent public facilities. Not only once or twice the accident occurred, not even the fatal ones, caused by the collapse of poles and billboard signs.

In Bandung City, the signs of billboard management are provided in Regional Regulation (Perda) No. 2/2017 regarding the Implementation of Billboards. On Tuesday, August 29 2023, Ema Sumarna the official Mayor of Bandung City stated the number of illegal advertising boards in Bandung was around 600 locations. This number is considerably lower than the thousands of illegal advertising board sites that were often mentioned several years prior.

Approaching the election year, The Bandung City Government held a coordination meeting on the placement of campaign props or incidental billboards on Thursday, July 13th 2023. It was emphasized that political campaign billboards should not be placed in government, military, hospital, and school areas.

"If the placement is improper, it could harm the community," claimed Ema Sumarna, the official Mayor of Bandung City at that time in the press release.

Still in the Bandung region, right in the Jatinangor area, Ridho Danu Prasetyo captured a huge billboard displayed clearly across the old gate of Padjadjaran University. This is not the first political billboard that he has found around the campus area. Previously, many billboards were being displayed before being taken down by officers. Danu admitted that those political billboards were enough to make college students uncomfortable.

"As far as I know, there is a regulation that limits the minimum distance of billboard placement close to educational institutions to 50 meters. However, this policy seems to be ignored in the area around Unpad," said Danu.

Learning from experience, we all understand that to gain power, people often justify any method.

* This photo story collaboration is being curated and prefaced by Virliya Putricantika. Translated from this article by Salma Nur Fauziyah.