Dwi Ria Latifa said she felt nervous when her party leaders asked her to run in the 2014 parliamentary election. The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician was thinking of the huge expenses she would have to cover. A close friend mentioned the figure of Rp6 billion. "I almost passed out," she said.

Ria was offered a Jakarta electorate. But she refused it, opting instead to contest in the Riau Islands. To the party elite, it was