Three Asian mayors named in world's top 10

Three Asians have been named among the world's top 10 mayors in an international competition that honours city leaders.

Indonesian politician Joko Widodo came third in the 2012 World Mayor Prize for his achievements as mayor in the central Java city of Surakarta, also known as Solo. He is now the governor of Jakarta after ousting the incumbent last September.

The other two Asian mayors in the top 10 were Park Wan-su, of Changwon City, South Korea, and Edgardo Pamintuan, mayor of Angeles City in the Philippines.

The World Mayor Prize is a competition run by the urban think tank City Mayors Foundation, which honours mayors who have best shown that they have "vision, passion and skills".

More than 200,000 people suggested 910 mayors for this year's contest and the top 10 were decided after a long process of votes and testimonials.

Two Chinese mayors were included on a list of 98 candidates announced in May last year.

They were Han Zheng , former mayor of Shanghai, and Lin Zuluan , who led protests against official corruption in Wukan .

Pamintuan, mayor of Angeles City since 2010, was praised for being the first mayor there to build a city college providing low-cost education and for modernising the city hospital.

Park's environmental initiatives for Changwon City, described as the environmental capital of South Korea, have won attention internationally.

As Solo's first directly elected mayor, Widodo refused to take a salary and has earned a reputation for being the most honest politician in Indonesia after he turned the once crime-ridden city into a regional centre for arts and culture. Now in Jakarta, the 51-year-old must tackle the big issues of Southeast Asia's most populous city, which is weighed down by corruption, and a bare-bones public transport system.

"Jokowi is a representation of new generation of Indonesian leaders who long to break from the past 'sin' of corruption, collusion and nepotism in Indonesia," said one testimonial that referred to him by his nickname.

The top prize went to Inaki Azkuna, the mayor of Bilbao Spain. Others in the top 10 were Lisa Scaffidi, the mayor of Perth, Australia, and Len Brown, of Auckland, New Zealand.