Tere, the Political Idealist

Political parties have been recruiting public figures especially artists to join them for many decades.

For example former Miss Indonesia Angelina Sondakh (Angie) and singer Theresia Pardede (Tere) who were recruited to join President SBY's Democrat Party, and elected as members of the House of Representatives for the term 2009-2014.

This kind of deal brings a win-win benefit for the artists and the political party. On the one hand, the artist got a chance to have a career as a states-person, therefore they can get lots of money. On the other hand the political party can expect to easily get more popular votes during elections.

The fact that politicians always been reluctant to release their public offices although the Police have named them as suspects in crime, have made me believe that those artists really enjoy their political status and would not want to release it.

           
But now I realized that my above assumption is wrong, that is after Tere (32) told the media last Friday that on 21 May 2012 she has resigned from the House of Representatives and the Democrat Party.

She was quoted as saying that she wants to take care of her father who is suffering heart illness. She is also very sad that Corruption still exist although political Reform (Reformasi) has been carried out 14 years ago.
And as a person who took part in the 1998 students demonstration to support Reformasi, she felt very sad that she cannot do anything to improve all that in her position as member of the House of Representatives.

I really respect Tere's decision to resign from political life, and hope that other artist-turned-politician would follow her path and give lesson to political parties i.e never forget that the main goal of Reformasi is to eliminate Corruption in Indonesia.

Photo : Courtesy of Tempo.

Ani Yudoyono: a Presidential Candidate?

 

During the general elections in 2004 and 2009, the political party of President Susilo Bambang Yudoyono (SBY) i.e. the Democrat Party, won majority popular vote

And based on those victories, the Democrat Party nominated SBY as candidate in the 2004 and 2009 Presidential elections, which were won triumphantly.

According to the amended Constitution of 1945, SBY can only hold Presidential office for two terms,  five years each, therefore he cannot be nominated again when his second office term ends in 2014.

As the strongest political party, the Democrat Party should have an eligible candidate for the next President election, so as to compete with candidates from other strong parties such as the Golkar Party which seems to plant to nominate its Chairman Aburizal Bakrie, the business conglomerate, as candidate.

Although, Aburizal Bakrie's name has been marred by the disastrous Hot Mudflow caused by his company's failure to follow standard procedure in gas exploration in Sidoardjo, East Java, however until now he is the most popular candidate.

Of course, there is former President Megawati of the Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle (PDIP) but many people questioned her ability, besides she is too old  (65).

So if the Democrat Party wants to lead the government again in 2014-2019, it has to nominate someone who can beat the popularity and quality of Aburizal Bakrie. But unfortunately, the Party doesn't seem to have one.
Its Chairman, Anas Urbaningrum is said to be allegedly connected with the wrong doings by members of Democrat Party, its other leader i.e. the Speaker of House of Representatives Marzuki Alie is not popular because of the bad public statements he has made.

Considering this fact, one of the Democrat Party leaders i.e. former lawyer Ruhut Sitompul has repeatedly made public statements saying that the best candidate would be President SBY's wife namely Mrs. Ani Yudoyono (click here).

However, according to the presidential spokesman Julian Pasha (click here) SBY has no plan to prepare any member of his family to be his successor.

Photo:  Courtesy of Skala News

The Arrest of Angie

After he was arrested in Colombia several months ago, Nazaruddin told the Commission for Eradication of Corruption (KPK) that there were some top officials in President SBY's Democrat Party who were involved with him in the alleged Athlete Housing Bribery and other Corruption cases.

Among the names mentioned were Democrat Party Chief Anas Urbaningrum and Deputy Secretary General Angelina Sondakh a.k.a Angie the Miss Indonesia 2001.

Based on this revelation, politicians and the news media urged KPK to immediately investigations on those persons. So, on 3 February 2012, KPK announced Angie as a Suspect based the Anti-Corruption Law.

After that KPK focused on prosecuting Nazaruddin to the Court, and did not seem to take further actions on Angie and the others, which angered politicians.

Last Friday, 27 April 2012, the KPK finally arrested Angie. Suara Karya quoted KPK Spokesman Johan Budi as saying that Angie is arrested for alleged corruption in the Ministry of Education, and she will remain in its custody for 20 days.

Kompas reported that Angie's lawyer Teuku Nasrullah protested the arrest because KPK only issued Investigation Order after the arrest, while actually it should be done before it named Angie as a Suspect more than 2 months ago.

I hope that the arrest of Angie is purely based on legal grounds as stated by KPK, and not merely because of pressures from the news media and politicians.

The Return of Nazaruddin

After almost 40 hours flight from Bogota, Colombia, the Gulfstream Jet landed at the Halim Military airbase in East Jakarta at 7.15 pm last night, bringing home the former Treasurer General of the ruling Democrat Party Muhammad Nazaruddin.

Nazaruddin stepped down from the 4 Billion Rupiah chartered jet plane wearing a bullet proof vest, hand cuffed and heavily guarded by the Police, and taken directly to the headquarters of the Mobile Brigade of the National Police in Depok, West Java for identity checking..

More than an hour later, he was taken to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) at South Jakarta that will investigate allegations against him, especially about his involvement in the misused of fund for the development of an athlete housing in Palembang, South Sumatera.

Later, KPK Chief Busyro Muqodas gave a press conference, during which Nazaruddin's black handbag, sealed by Colombia Police, was opened. The bag contain US$ 20,000, wallet, 3 mobile phones, USB.

After that, all those things were put inside the hand bag again, re-sealed, and kept by the KPK as evidence. Busyro promised that the investigations will be carried out transparently.

Before midnight, Nazaruddin was returned to the Mobile Brigade headquarters where he will be detained.

Many people are happy with the law enforcement's success in bringing back Nazaruddin, because it would enable him to prove whether or not his allegations were true.

However, some people were not happy, such as Nazaruddin's lawyer OC Kaligis who alleged that the Indonesian government has obstructed Nazruddin's efforts to get an asylum in Colombia, and did not allow him to accompany Nazaruddin on the flight to Jakarta

He also said that this case would not be investigated properly by the KPK because two of its officials were alleged by Nazaruddin of being involved in corruption cases. Moreover they doubt that President the Democrat Party would allow Nazaruddin to be investigated transparently.

I believed that the success of our government and law enforcement agency to coordinate with Interpol and the Colombian government to bring back Nazaruddin is the best thing for Indonesia, because it would enable them to investigate all the allegations that he has made against others, as well as the allegations made against him.

Any efforts to obstruct the return of Nazaruddin to Indonesia, such as trying to arrange asylum for him would be against the interest of the people and the state of Indonesia.

The Democrat Party and Nazaruddin

The ruling Democrat Party last night announced the dismissal of Muhammad Nazaruddin from his position as the party's Treasurer.

The party's senior official Amir Syamsuddin told the media that the decision was made in response to the growing rumors in society about Nazaruddin's involvement in several criminal allegations including an attempt to bribe the Secretary General of the Constitutional Court and receiving bribe from the contractor of the South East Asia Games 2011 Athletes Complex in Palembang, South Sumatera.  

He said that the allegations against Nazaruddin have grown so wide and might have great impact on the party as well as Nazaruddin himself. The dismissal would avoid the party from bad publicity related to this case, and would enable Nazaruddin to concentrate on defending himself against those allegations.

The party will leave it all to the law enforcement agencies to process this case, but request that any legal actions should be based on the principle of presumption of innocence.

In spite of the above, Nazarrudin shall maintain his status as a member of the House of Representatives.

Considering that until his dismissal last night Nazaruddin was the Treasurer of the Democrat Party whose duties includes getting, maintaining and spending money for and on behalf of the party, therefore it would not be easy to prove that he is the only one responsible for all the bad things alleged against him

Attacks on Moderate Moslems and Anti-Narcotic Agency

Yesterday afternoon a bomb exploded at the office of the Institute for Studies on the Free Flow of Information (ISAI) in Utan Kayu, Central Jakarta.

The bomb was disguised as a book titled " Mereka Harus Dibunuh Karena Dosa-Dosa Mereka Terhadap Islam dan Kaum Muslim " meaning " Those Who Should Be Killed Because of Their Sins To Islam and Muslims ", in a package sent by Drs Sulaiman Azhar LC for the former chairman of the Liberal Islamic Network (JIL), currently a top official of President SBY's Democrat Party i.e Ulil Abshar Abdalla.

According to The Jakarta Post, the book was received by employee of ISAI at around 10 a.m. who contacted the police later in the afternoon after noticing cables sticking out of the book.

Kompas reported that the police were trying to secure the book when the explosion occurred. As a result, the East Jakarta chief detective Comr. Dodi Rahmawan suffered serious injuries, one of his hand was blown off, another Police officer and employee of ISAI were injured.

Later in evening a similar package was sent to Comr. Gen. Gories Mere, former key officer of the National Police’s anti-terrorists unit, Densus 88, at his office at the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) in Cawang, East Jakarta.

According to The Jakarta Globe, the bomb was not opened and was safely disposed of. The head of the Jakarta Police’s bomb squad, Sr. Comr. Wahyu Widodo was quoted as saying that the package was similar to the one sent to Ulil, which contained a thick book in which the bomb was hidden.

I wonder whether the above incidents indicate that the terrorist who used to claim that they were fighting for religion have now join forces with drug dealers.  I hope that the Police Densus 88 will hunt them and bring them to justice very soon.

Politicians and Football

2010 has left us with many home works that must be carried out in 2011, i.e. the eradication of Corruption, Poverty and Injustice.

We have among others, the mysterious Bank Century bail-out, the shaky leadership of the Corruption Eradication Commission, and prosecution of Taxman Gayus Tambunan.

Besides, we also have the inter-religion relationship which is often shaky when it comes to rights of minorities.

On top of that, there are the maneuvers made by political parties to prepare for the general elections and presidential elections in 2014, whereby according to our Constitution President SBY must end his second office term.

Although there is still no official announcement, however major political parties have been giving signals to the public about who would be their Presidential candidates.

President SBY's Democrat Party has the First Lady Any Yudoyono. The Golkar Party has its Chairman Aburizal Bakrie. And the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party in Struggle has the daughter of former President Megawati, Puan Maharani.

Various efforts have been made by the politicians, the most notable were made by Bakrie who gave Three Billion Rupiah and land area of Twenty Five Hectares to our national team as bonus for their success in reaching the Final Rounds of the recent AFF-Suzuki Cup football tournament.

Further, the Chairman of the Indonesian Football Association (PSSI) Nurdin Halid, a member of Golkar Party, has publicly announced that his decision to lower the ticket price for the tournament from Seventy Five Thousand Rupiah to Fifty Thousand Rupiah was made based on the request of Bakrie as his Party's boss.

In response to Golkar Party's above moves, and growing public demands for Nurdin Halid's resignation from PSSI, Arifin Panigoro, member of the Reform Democratic Party who supported President SBY, has initiated the creation of the independent Indonesian Premier League (LPI). 

Nurdin Halid and PSSI have declared that LPI is illegal and requested the Police to stop its activities.

I felt that the above situation is very ugly and not healthy for the development of football in Indonesia which is now showing some improvements. Therefore in order to make football develop well, I strongly believe that PSSI should be managed by people who are free from any political background.

Image :  Courtesy of Mises.

Third Term for President SBY?

One of the hottest news lately is about the possibility of President Susilo Bambang Yudoyono (SBY) to run as a candidate in the next presidential election in 2014.

This is impossible, because according to the amended Constitution a president can only hold two office terms, and currently SBY is on his second office term.

This shocking idea was brought by the PR of SBY's Democrat Party i.e. Lawyer Ruhut Sitompul who said that SBY is the only suitable person for the post. For which purpose he proposed an amendment of said constitution clause to allow a president hold more than two office terms.

Amendment of the Constitution is not an easy thing to do and should through several steps. First, a proposal for amendment should be approved by at least 1/3 votes of the joint meeting of House of Representatives and the Regional Representatives Council. Second, the joint meeting must be attended by at least 2/3 of the members. Third, 51% of the members must be give their approval.

Considering that the Democrat Party only have 25% seats in the House of Parliament, they have to obtain approval from the other members of the coalition, which means that they have to give much more consessions, especially to the Golkar Party as second largest party.

In my humble opinion, amendment of the Constitution would take a whole lots of time, energy and cause political tensions. Therefore it would be much better if the Constitution is not disturbed and let new leaders become president in 2014.  



For details on the above, please read the following articles :
-  Undang-undang Dasar 1945 (Indonesian Constitution)
-  SBY and a Third Term as President?
-  Extending Presidential Term Betrays Indonesia's Reform

Anas Urbaningrum, a new Hope for Indonesia

Yesterday evening, the congress of the ruling Democrat Party (PD) has elected Anas Urbaningrum (40), currently the chief of the party's faction in the House of Representative (DPR) as Chairman of the party.

This is a big surprise considering that the two other candidates have better advantages i.e. Marzuki Alie (54) is the the Speaker of the DPR, and Andi Malarangeng (47) is the Minister of State for Youth and Sports  supported by the son of President Susilo Bambang Yudoyono (SBY) i.e. Eddy Baskoro.

Moreover, Anas did not use the mass media for campaign, while his rivals, especially Andi Malarangeng, have used them very intensively.

Brief information about Anas ::
Anas was born in Blitar, East Java, 15 January 1969. He studied Political science at the Airlangga University, Surabaya-East Java, and Gajah Mada University (Post graduate) in Jogyakarta, active in student movements as Chairman of the Islamic Students Association (HMI) from 1997 to 1999. Married with four children. He was a member of the General Election Commission from 2001 until 2005, afterward he join the party's leadership and became member of DPR in 2009.

Considering that PD is the party of President SBY, therefore leads the coalition government, and has the largest number of seats in the DPR,  the victory of Anas is not only important for his party but also for Indonesia that badly needs fresh young leaders to replace old politicians who are currently running the country.